Season of the Witch
by cowgirlfromhell
Summary: Sam unknowingly receives a gift that keeps on giving. Headaches and heartaches, trouble and terror.
1. Chapter 1

Contains information of record on certain spirits and actual spells. So here's one for you, dear reader, to keep you safe.

The Prayer of Protection  
Oh great and eternal virtue of the highest, which through thy disposition, these being called to judgement, Vaicheon, Stimulamaton, Esphares, Tetragrammaton, Olioram, Cryon, Esytion, Existion, Eriona, Onela, Brasim, Noym, Messias, Soter, Emanuel, Sabboth, Adonay, I worship thee, I invocate thee, I implore thee with all the strength of my mind, that by thee, my present Prayers, consecrations, and conjurations be hallowed and wheresoever wicked spirits are called, in the virtue of thy names, they may come together from every shore, and diligently fulfill the will of me the conjurer. Fiat, fiat, fiat, Amen.

Sioux City, South Dakota – December 2006

"Hey, Bobby," Sam called out as he searched the rows of rusted hulks that made up the back lot of Singer's Salvage Yard.

"Over here!" came a shouted reply and, two rows over, near the fence, Sam finally found him. The older hunter was standing next to an ancient, faded orange, VW Superbeetle and a smile broke out on Sam's face as he came nearer.

"Dean's first ride," Sam said and rubbed his hand lovingly across the top quickly recalling him and his brother tooling around the salvage yard and occasionally down to the local Dairy Queen when John was gone and Bobby took his eyes off of them for half a second.

"Yeah, I was just checkin' through it and I found this under the back seat. It's got your name on it." Bobby held out a wooden box about 8 inches square on which Sam's name was written in a feminine hand in ink on the top.

"Oh, wow," Sam said with a smile, "I remember this. I got it for Christmas one year."

"Well, what in Pecla's it doin' hidden in Dean's car?"

"You got me." Sam set the box down on the car's roof and opened it. He picked up the folded piece of paper that lay on top and opened it and read aloud.

"Dude,

You're what now, ten? Well, it's about time you stopped hanging onto this because dad already thinks you're gay and he'd be pretty pissed if he knew you were playing with a witch's ball...or your own for that matter. So, I'm putting this in a place where you'll never find it again…unless you're messing around where you don't belong. So leave it where you found it and get the hell out of my car.

Your awesome brother,

Dean Winchester"

Sam looked up at Bobby in complete shock, his face turning crimson while Bobby just laughed, loud and hard. He could just imagine Dean, his head bent over a desk, his pencil gripped tightly in his fingers, writing the letter to his brother then hiding it between the pages of a Playboy magazine until he had time to fold it up and hide it, along with the beautiful glass ball, in the car.

"You really think this is a witch's ball?" Sam asked pulling it from the box and holding it up to the sun.

Bobby examined it from afar and shrugged. "Who knows? Glass balls have been around since the invention of glass. Besides, it's only a myth that witches are dumb enough to fly into one just 'cause it's pretty and sparkly…unless she's Paris Hilton."

Sam was about to put the ball away when he spotted something else that lay nestled in the bottom of the box. He pulled it out and handed it to Bobby while he replaced the ball in the blue silk lining.

Bobby's smile faded as he looked at a photograph. Turning it over he saw something written on the back in Dean's strong handwriting. 'Jewels and Grace Downey' and under it 'Grace Winchester'. Bobby sighed.

"Who is it, Bobby?" Sam wanted to know looking at the the photograph.

"It's Jewels Downey and her little girl. You were only five and Dean had just turned ten so you probably don't remember her. She helped save your dad when he got hurt on a hunt."

Sam thought back and may have vaguely remembered but he couldn't be sure. "Whatever happened to her?"

"When Jewels got home to Massachusetts her parents were dead and," he pointed to the little girl in the picture, "her daughter Grace was gone."

"Jesus…" Sam started.

"Had nothin' to do with it," Bobby interjected, "It was probably Azazel," he had surmised and added, "Anyway, Jewels disappeared. I heard she was hunting for Grace and for the same demon your father was hunting but I haven't heard anything about her for years...not that we're a tight knit group."

Sam turned the photo over and caught a glimpse of a brother he never knew existed. A brother who, at fifteen, had hidden the ball and the photo and who had had a brief fantasy of someday marrying a girl named Grace.

Bobby told him, "Your dad took it real bad and Dean, he took it even worse."

The Impala's powerful engine announced the arrival of his brother with Chinese take-out and Sam stuffed the photo back into the box and closed the lid.

"You gonna put it back?"

"Hell, no," Sam told Bobby and shoved the box under his jacket, "It's mine."

Later that evening, Sam sat in the room he used when staying with Bobby staring at his laptop in search of more information on psychic vampires. He looked over at the newly found glass ball sitting on the table next to the computer and remembered it hanging in different motel room windows as they traveled the country. He also remembered Dean always taking it down before their father returned. Sam guessed Dean had finally gotten tired of keeping his present from Jewels a secret and had ditched it in the Bug.

But his dad was gone now and he didn't have to do what Dean told him anymore and he was strangely drawn to it's delicate shape and beauty.

"Dude!" Dean said sticking his head into the room.

Sam quickly covered the ball with his beanie and turned to see what he wanted.

"I'm headed out to the Do Drop Inn. You game?"

Thankful for a respite from his research, Sam turned off the laptop and picked up his hat but not before moving the ball behind the screen and out of his brother's line of sight. "Yeah, but I'm the pool hustler tonight and you're the hustlee."

"Okay, but who's gonna believe I could ever loose to a jerk like you?"

"Anyone who's ever seen you play, bitch" Sam assured him and, opening the door the rest of the way, he pushing his brother out into the hall.

Their raucous banter died out as they headed down the stairs and out the front door, the search for psychic vampires and the glass ball forgotten for the time being.

As it rested on the table Sam would have had the answer to his question about the beautiful glass ball. It began to spin, slowly at first, then picked up enough speed to move it like a whirling top to the edge of the old wooded desk where it fell to the floor with a crash and shattered into exactly six-hundred and sixty-six tiny shards. An unlucky number in any hunter's book and a portent of things to come in Sam Winchester's forthcoming Season of the Witch.


	2. Chapter 2

She had no candles, nor natural paper, only the snow in which to scribe her circle and within that circle she drew a triangle and a cross. Then, standing well away from the symbol, she spoke.

"Oh great and eternal virtue of the highest, which through thy disposition, these being called to judgment, Vaicheon, Stimulamaton, Esphares, Tetragrammaton, Olioram, Cryon, Esytion, Existion, Eriona, Onela, Brasim, Noym, Messias, Soter, Emanuel, Sabboth, Adonay, I worship thee, I invocate thee, I implore thee with all the strength of my mind, that by thee, my present Prayers, consecrations, and conjurations be hallowed and wheresoever wicked spirits are called, in the virtue of thy names, they may come together from every shore, and diligently fulfill the will of me the conjurer. Fiat, fiat, fiat, Amen."

Taking a deep breath she closed her eyes and waited. Within moments her skin warmed until sweat poured from her body. He long hair began to lift and swirl in a breeze that blew only in the darkened alleyway and she spoke again in her soft, childlike voice, "I beseech thee by all the means I can, by thy holy names, grant me thy virtue and power, that I may be able to cite before me, thy spirits which were cast down that they may speak with me, and dispatch by and by without delay, and with a good will, and without the harm of my body, soul or goods. Gather thee now spirits of the Seven Winds and the Four Corners that all may pay heed to thy worker."

The breeze quickly turned to a fierce wind whipping her hair into frenzy around her and the sweat on her body froze into crystals and, through chattering teeth, she spoke again, this time two words only, "Sam Winchester."

The wind tangled her hair into rat's nests and buffeted her thin body, threatening to slam her into the back of the red brick building that was the local real estate office and she shouted to be heard. "Go now, take thy leave spirit unto the place predestined and appointed for thee, where the eternal virtue of the highest hath appointed thee, until I shall call thee again. Be thou ready unto me and to my call, as often as I shall call thee, upon the promise and pain of everlasting damnation!" and as the wind died down she realized that she was freezing and that she was naked.

She was cold, naked and bleeding and turned toward the street. The bright holiday lights that festooned the light poles lining the street drew her like a moth to a flame and she stepped out of the dark alleyway and into the rosy artificial light of the street lamps just as the snow began to fall again, lightly at first then picking up volume.

Looking up into the night sky she lifted her arms and began to twirl along with the swirling flakes as they fell to the ground. Cold, naked, bleeding, arms outstretched, eyes closed and lips smiling, she whirled faster and faster, her hair flying out in a dark halo until she was in the middle of the street and the first of the few remaining cars out on the streets on Christmas Eve, passed her by, horn blaring, irate driver shouting and shaking an angry fist, while in another car a responsible citizen dialed 911.

Opening her eyes the bright headlights illuminated her pale skin and dark eyes and she turned away from their overbrightness and another car passed slowly by. This time the driver yelled something about her being drunk or retarded or both but she was no longer listening.

A huge Christmas tree stood in the town center lit up with multi-colored blinking lights of red, blue, green and orange. Tin-foil covered shapes, sparkling as they moved in the breeze that had started with the snowfall, festooned the tree's branches and she crossed the other lane of traffic and walked up to stand next to it, a siren sounding faintly in the distance.

She was now naked, cold, bleeding and completely mesmerized and across the common in the Do Drop Inn, Sam Winchester suddenly had the urge to leave.

"Dude," Dean called out when Sam laid his cue on the table and reached for his jacket, "You can't go now. The place is just starting to jump."

But the bar was empty except for the two of them and a bored to tears bartender. There was no one to hustle out of a few bucks of hard earned cash or to buy the next round but that wasn't the reason Sam wanted to leave. Truth be told, he had no idea why he wanted to leave.

It certainly wasn't to go back to Bobby's to celebrate Christmas Eve because there was nothing to celebrate, except maybe making it to the end of the year alive and in one piece, something their father hadn't managed to do. Sam just knew he couldn't stay in the bar any longer and, for whatever reason, he shrugged into his jacket and headed for the door.

Throwing a twenty onto the bar, Dean followed close on his heels out into the icy wind and newly falling snow. He stopped to listen to the approaching siren as he zipped up in protection of the cold.

Sam, his broad shoulders hunched against the wind, turned to follow the sidewalk to the Salvage Yard but Dean stopped him and said with a chuckle, "Dude, would you look at that?" He pointed to the Christmas tree in the square, and to the naked woman who stood gawking at it, and Sam just took off running at a brisk pace to intercept her.

"Don't get involved, Sammy, the cops'll be here any minute," Dean called out him but Sam either didn't hear him or chose to ignore him and started to take off his jacket as he trotted in her direction.

"Hey," he called out gently so as not to frighten her and when she heard his voice she turned and looked at him for a few moments then ran to him and threw her arms around him.

"Here, crazy lady" Sam said extricating himself from her embrace, a frown on his face.

"Put this on before you freeze to death," she heard him say and smiled as she slipped into his jacket. It came down to mid-thigh on her and would keep her warm for the time being. But her legs and feet were bare so he swooped her up in his arms and, making sure the police cruiser that had just turned onto main street was headed in the opposite direction, he started off at a trot heading toward Singer's Salvage Yard.


	3. Chapter 3

On his way to the kitchen for another beer Bobby Singer heard the stomping of heavy boots on the front porch and, checking to make sure it was the boys fumbling with the key in the lock and not some demon, he turned the knob and pulled open the door. Dean pushed his way in shivering and brushed snow from his head and shoulders while making room for Sam to come inside and put the half naked woman he'd been carrying down on her bare feet in the foyer.

The younger Winchester ushered her into the living room to stand next to the fire burning in the hearth while Bobby looking questioningly at Dean.

"Sammy must have been a good boy this year," Dean told the older hunter, "Santa left him a naked babe under the town tree."

Bobby snorted and took a drink of his beer and asked, "You sure that gift wasn't for you?"

"Not a chance," Dean replied plucking the bottle from Bobby's hand and taking a swig, "I've been very, very bad."

In the parlor, the woman looked around the shabby room and then returned her gaze to the flickering flames. She ignored Sam's gentle questions for the moment while she listened to the other two and when the two of them came into the room, Bobby with a fresh beer for himself and one for Sam, she turned to face them. Her shoulders were hunched in the too big jacket as if she were trying to hide from him while the older man's eyes bored into her as if he were trying to discover what was in her soul. She decided then and there that she didn't like him. And Dean Winchester? Well, she had never liked him and when he came closer she leaned into Sam and he reflexively put his arm around her.

Her reaction was not lost on Dean, not that he could understand her obvious aversion to his boyish good looks and obvious charm, but he was content to push the books piled on the couch onto the floor and take a seat on the worn leather. He was also more than willing to let Sammy find out which insane asylum the woman had escaped from and to give her a lift back.

Bobby took a seat in the big overstuffed Lazy Boy and kicked out his legs to relax and to wait for Sam to try and explain what the hell was going on but Sam didn't have a clue.

He asked her name again and she turned and smiled at him and finally answered, "Sabine."

Beautiful name for a beautiful girl, Bobby thought, but there was something more to her that met the eye and it wasn't just the fact that she was naked under the jacket and that he could now plainly see the cuts and rivulets of blood on her long legs that he hadn't noticed before and with a sigh he got back up out of the chair.

"What happened to your legs?' he asked gruffly, crossing over to her to squat down and take a closer look. She bolted behind Sam like a scared jackrabbit so he passed off her care to him, "Take her upstairs and tend to those cuts. There's a first aid kit in the hall linen closet."

Sam had forgotten about the cuts and told her to follow him as he headed toward the stairs but she was already stuck to him like glue.

"Put her in the spare bedroom. It's too late to call anyone tonight," Bobby decided and Sam breathed easier.

He didn't wanted to confront her about the cuts or about her state of undress; he just felt he needed to take care of her and grabbing the first aid kit he ushered her into his room.

Sabine wandered around the room, running her hands over various item, his books, a discarded shirt that hung on the back of a chair. Sam opened the med kit and laid out antiseptic and butterfly adhesive strips but before he could corral her and lead her into the bathroom that joined his bedroom with Dean's, she cried out and disappeared from sight.

She'd stepped directly onto the shattered glass from Sam's old Christmas gift, more than one shard slicing open her foot, and she sat, fat tears rolling down her cheeks and Sam, pissed at himself for not taking better care of the gift, squatted down beside her and gently lifted her foot. He grabbed a shard and pulled. In reaction, Sabine sucked in her breath and jerked her foot and the piece of glass sliced the palm of his hand.

"Damn it," he swore and grabbed some tissue from his desk. He wrapped his hand and took her foot again.

"I'm sorry, Sam," she sniffed and looked so crestfallen that he just smiled and went back to pulling glass, more carefully this time.

"It's okay. Do you think you can make it to the bathroom?" he wanted to know. She looked puzzled and he told her, "I think the blood makes your cuts look worse than they really are but I need to know if you need to go to the ER."

She looked panic stricken. She didn't know what an ER was and told him, "I'd rather stay here, with you."

Sam didn't think she'd need to go but he needed to be sure and he picked her up, carried her across his room and into the bathroom and deposited her on the bathmat. Unzipping his jacket, he slipped it off of her and saw that the cuts on her arms had bled quite a lot but that they were superficial.

"Did you run through a window," he asked her.

She replied without enough conviction to make him believe it. "Yes, through a window."

He wouldn't press her for now and turned on the shower and adjusted the temperature. He then helped her over the edge of the tub and pointed out the shampoo and the soap and pulled the curtain closed. "Holler when you're done. I'll find something for you to wear," he told her and closed the bathroom door behind him.

As he crossed the room to search the closet for a flannel shirt he thought that, if it weren't for all the blood, this could have been some kind of prank booty call set up by Dean to help him get over Jessie. As it was it was a real trial for him and he, for one, would pant a little easier when her smokin' body was covered up, although things might go from bad to worse depending on how sexy she looked in one of his shirts and if he conveniently forgot about the crazy factor.

In the bathroom Sabine pulled the shower curtain back and thought, "So this is what a bathroom looks like" and, always exceptionally intuitive when faced with a new time or a new place, Sabine looked around wide-eyed and took stock.

Running water and electricity and an indoor toilet, things she had heard of over the years but had never seen and she relished the clean, warm water and bathed in it until it ran cold and Sam finally came back into the room, towels and a shirt in hand to find out if she was okay.

He reached between the curtain and the wall and turned off the faucet then handed her a towel. She wanted to be naked with Sam, always, but wrapped the large, soft piece of cloth around her and with his help stepped back onto the mat.

"There's a hair dryer," he said pointing to a black device, "And a spare tooth brush and some toothpaste. As soon as you're ready for bed, I'll show you the spare room." And with that he was gone again.

Sabine ran Sam's comb through her tangled dark brown hair until it lay, thick and stick straight down her back. She had always let the air dry it and picked up the toothbrush. It was as she remembered only she knew the bristles were plastic and not boar's hairs and, laying it down on the sink, she looked into the mirror and smiled.

She looked virtually the same as she had when she'd bedded the vicar and he'd died in her bed. The same as when she'd soured the milk of her neighbor's cows and when she'd sent a plague of locust to wipe out the crops. She looked the same as she had when she'd harbored the rats the carried the Black Death and when she'd told the hunters where the hunted could be found and suddenly she was giddy and began to whirl again as she had in the street.

She stopped spinning and peered at herself in the mirror again and thought that, above all, she looked the same as she had when they'd crushed her with stones, the same when, years later, she had been forced to sit in a dunk stool until she drowned and again when they'd strapped her into a Scold's Bridle and finally, she looked the same as she had the day they'd hung her.


	4. Chapter 4

The room Sam showed her to and left her alone in was at the far end of the hallway. It was a small room with a small single bed, a dresser, on which sat an antique lamp, and an old blanket chest in which she furtively hid the blood encrusted tissue that Sam had wrapped around his hand after cutting himself along with one of the lamp's crystal drops.

Angry at being so unceremoniously dumped in the room while Sam went on about his business, her foot throbbed as she paced back and forth. She would not be ignored nor pushed off, especially after evoking the Spirits General to lead him to her. Did he think that spells came without consequence? she wondered, and a breeze blew through the room and the remaining crystals on the lamp tinkled as they tapped together.

Making her way to the chest, she opened the lid and withdrew the crystal. Holding it up to the light she saw that it was dull and dirty from years of neglect. She feverishly rubbed it on her shirttail until it shown brightly in the light from the lamp and holding it up again to the light she thought of Gusoin, a powerful ruler of forty legions and able to answer questions regarding all things, past, present and even what will come to pass.

Summoned by her many times over the years, Sabine knew Gusoin to be extremely powerful and that his apparition was always best controlled by binding him to an inanimate object so she dragged the bed from its position against the wall and took her finger and drew a small circle in the layers of dust that had accumulated beneath it. Into the circle she placed one of the many candles that were stored in every nook and cranny in the house. She lit it, turned off the light and placed the crystal where it caught the light of the candle and quietly began to speak.

"I conjure thee Gusoin by the eternal virtue of the highest, the one who is the beginning and ending of the circle of life, that thou Gusoin do now appear, in this crystal stone, at my pleasure, to me, gently and beautifully, in the fair form of a young boy, without hurt or damage of my body or soul, and do proceed to inform and show, without any guile or craftiness, all that I do desire or demand of thee to know, by the power of the highest, who shall come to judge the quick and the dead, and the world by fire, Amen."

Almost immediately the crystal began to shake and then to roll around the circle. Coming close to the edge but never able to break through the boundary, Sabine watched patiently until Gusoin, his temper tantrum finished, let the crystal rest and she leaned down and saw his image reflected in the sparkling drop.

"Gusoin, it's good to gaze upon your handsome visage again," she told him prettily knowing full well of his vanity and conceit.

"What is it that you wish to know?" the tiny figure asked in an unexpectedly loud and irritated voice as she picked up the crystal and held it in her palm.

"About Sam Winchester," she told the spirit and sat cross-legged on the floor near the circle, the reflection of the candle flashing around the room as she moved the crystal.

"His past has been hard, his present harder still and his future," Gusoin paused for emphasis, "filled with more suffering and more loss. The loss of family and of a friend plus the loss of someone he holds beloved. But most crucial of all…the loss of self."

"Is this set in stone as you are in crystal?" she asked the tiny figure.

Shaking his head Gusoin told her, "You know full well that which can be altered with bell, book and candle is never set in stone. But mind yourself witch, the future is a dangerous thing to amend."

"I have no fear on that point," she reminded him and he agreed.

"Aye, you are a commanding and powerful witch but conjure thee well Sabine, lest you be the one to loose all."

"You are too worrisome, Gusoin, naught happened to me the last time I summoned you."

"Not to you, Sabine, but to hundreds of thousands of others," he reminded her.

Having no desire to be reminded of that holocaust she placed the crystal back into the circle to reflect the light once more and said arrogantly, "Go now, take thy leave spirit, unto the place predestined and appointed for thee, where the eternal virtue of the highest hath appointed thee, until I shall call thee again. Be thou ready unto me and to my call, as often as I shall call thee, upon the promise and pain of everlasting damnation!"

As the crystal grew progressively darker until it reflected no light at all, Gusoin returned to his place in hell well rid of the self centered, self absorbed, loathsome creature, Sabine.


	5. Chapter 5

Sabine didn't sleep that night. Although she could see neither as the snow continued to fall, she paced the room until the moon waned and the sun rose all the while keeping an eye on the small black and white television, a magical box that showed her many new and wondrous things. She finally sat down on the bed and cocked an ear to listen to the house and heard nothing but her own stomach growling and suddenly she realized she was starving.

The old man's kitchen was fairly clean but incredibly cluttered. Sifting through the packed refrigerator she managed to find bacon, eggs and some butter. In the cabinets she found bread along with a myriad of spices, while dried herbs, many of which were poisonous, hung from nails high on the pantry ceiling and she wondered if Sam's Bobby was a conjurer as well as a bad-tempered old bear.

She found an apron hanging in the pantry and put it on to cover the shirt and the rolled up jeans she wore and the cuttings from the poisonous herbs that she slipped into the pocket. The benign and flavorful ones she crushed with her fingers and let fall into the eggs, her mind lost in contemplating her next move until she heard someone ask, "Did they teach you how to cook in the asylum?"

It was Dean Winchester and instead of cursing him with a sour stomach she smiled and said with her back still to him, "Among other things," and continued to sprinkle the dried herbs into the eggs.

"Gonna try and poison us?" he asked mockingly, his eyes on her deliciously rounded ass as she stood at the stove, utensils in hand. Moving closer he smelled the fragrance of jasmine emanating from her long, glowing, chocolate colored hair.

As she stirred the eggs in the large frying pan she could smell his pheromones and when she turned she saw his arrogant conceit plainly in his eyes as he stared challengingly at her and knew it came from a place of insecurity and self-loathing, leverage for the future. Sabine shoveled a mound of the eggs onto a plate and set it before one of the empty chairs.

Not trusting her completely his mouth began to water and he was completely betrayed by his stomach. He sat down at the empty place but, instead of digging in, he just stared at the eggs.

Sorely tempted to make his eyes bleed into that which he examined, Sabine poured coffee into a large mug instead and came up to stand behind him. Leaning over his shoulder she set the cup next to his plate and spoke softly into his ear, "Like him who day by day unto his draught, Of delicate poison adds him one drop more, Till he may drink unharmed the death of ten."

Looking back at her over his shoulder Dean snorted and replied pragmatically, "That which doesn't kill us, makes us stronger."

"King Mithradites feared being poisoned and began to drink small amounts of poison each day, increasing the amounts until he was resistant to even a massive dose," she told him and ate a fork full of the eggs from his plate.

When she didn't fall down dead, as he had secretly hoped, Dean began to eat. Small tastes at first and when he didn't keel over writhing on the ground and frothing at the mouth he figured it was all good and began to eat in earnest.

If the way to a man's heart was through his stomach Dean would have been in love, except for the fact that he still thought her crazy bucket was filled to the brim. And when Sam came into the room and her eyes lit up he knew her bucket runneth over.

The hot, crazy chick obviously had it bad for Sammy; even Bobby could see it when he followed after him into the kitchen and the three of them sat at the table while Sabine seduced them all with her culinary skills and her tale of woe.

The woman had no recollection as to how she came to be standing naked in the center of town or how she came to be superficially cut to ribbons. She could only recall being held prisoner somewhere cold and dark and Bobby had a sneaking suspicion that it was a prison of her own making and in her own mind. But he had seen far worse and far more bizarre things over the years and until the snow let up or until she remembered more, Bobby was content to let her stay as long as she needed to. Sam was relieved while Dean didn't give a rat's ass, as long as she agreed to cook.


	6. Chapter 6

A week passed and the four of them fell into a pleasant enough routine, Dean spending the majority of his time at various bars around town while Sam waited for the inevitable phone call or email or newspaper headline or breaking story about something unearthly or just plain evil. Bobby occasionally networked but spent the bulk of his time drafting plans for a panic room he hoped to construct some day and Sabine, when she wasn't cooking, surreptitiously followed Sam's every move, something that left Bobby with a growing feeling of unease.

Maybe it was just the depression of the holidays following him into the New Year but all the same Bobby hoped the call to duty would come sooner than later and that the boys would head out again on the road and that Sabine would follow them out the door going back to wherever it was that she had come. The longer he was around her the more troubled he became and, although she gave no outward sign that she was anything other than a woman of mysterious circumstance, he felt she could sense his disquiet along with everything else he was feeling…and she could.

Watching Bobby, his head bent over a pad of paper scratching diligently or futilely in Sabine's mind, she knew he suspected that there was more to her than met the eye and try as she might to deflect his scrutiny he was too seasoned a hunter to just let it go. But when Dean came through the door, his jacket in hand and fire in his eyes babbling about a possible sighting of some yellow eyed demon, Sabine knew that Bobby's suspicions would fast become a moot point because the boys would be gone. She knew that they wouldn't take her along and that they wouldn't stay even if she asked, not for her. There was only one person they would stay for and that was Bobby Singer. So Sabine, quite forgotten in the rush to coordinate information from various sources, slipped on the new boots and the winter coat Sam had purchased for her and headed out the back door and into the woods at the far end of the wrecking yard.

There she searched out a suitable spot out of the line of sight of the house and well hidden from any passersby and began the task of clearing the snow until the bare ground was visible. She broke through the frozen ground with a jagged piece of iron from Bobby's foundry striking a large triangle. Within the triangle she carved a circle. Sabine was going to conjure Shax, a dark and powerful overlord of thirty legions in hell, and he would not appear without the circle. And although he promised to be obedient to the conjurer, Sabine had found that Shax would only speak lies without the outlying triangle.

Pulling her coat closer against the chill she began to speak in a bold commanding voice, "I conjure thee Shax, in the name of Bileth and Beliall, their power and retribution and to their virtues and powers I charge thee Shax, that thou shalt not take leave from thy place and constraint, nor alter thy bodily image to deceive but shall thee remain in the form that thou hath been given the ableness to have appeared in, nor any power shalt thou have of my body or soul, earthly or ghostly, but to be obedient to me, and to the words of my conjuration."

She took a deep breath and continued, "I conjure thee Shax, by all thrones, dominations, principats, potestats and virtutes, and by their virtues and powers. I conjure and charge, bind and constrain thee Shax, by the highest and their virtues, that thou be obedient unto me, and to come and appear visible unto me, and that in all days, hours, and minutes, wheresoever I be, being called by the virtue of the highest, thou shalt look ready to appear unto me, and to give me good counsel, to share the truths of many things and in all other things my will to be quickly fulfilled: I charge thee upon pain of everlasting condemnation, Fiat, fiat, fiat, Amen."

The wind began to howl and the sun seemed to hurry in its arc across the sky until it passed behind the dark storm clouds building on the horizon and a shadow was cast upon the woods and Shax appeared as he always did, completely covered, his hands and face hidden deep within a black coweled cloak.

"What is it that ye desire?" the wraith asked pulling the cowl down to further hide his hideously pockmarked face.

"Thou art a liar and deceiver so I shall not ask a question of you but instead would ask only that ye grant me protection from one who would do me harm."

Shax, content to remain within the circle, simply asked her, "Who would dare harm the conjurer?"

"Bobby Singer," she told him.

Shax slowly turned to look toward the house and, in a hoarse and subtle voice, stole away the site, hearing and the understanding of Sabine's foe.


	7. Chapter 7

The ambulance was already there by the time she returned to the house, paramedics kneeling on the floor next to the old man, his arms flailing wildly, his mouth spewing gibberish, his eyes open but unseeing.

"Bobby, calm down, man," Dean said more sternly than he'd intended worried that the thrashing man would hurt himself even more than he had when he'd pitched the first of his fits that sent him crashing into a table then onto the floor, head bleeding like a stuck pig.

Dean's tone of voice didn't matter. Bobby couldn't hear him or Sam as the two of them tried to calm him. His world was now black and silent and unfathomable but he could still feel and when the small cold hands caressed his cheek, he grew still and compliant and, with Sabine in the back of the ambulance with him, the trip to the hospital was for the most part uneventful.

At the hospital the three of them sat for hours, Sam quiet and introspective and Dean agitated, jumping up every fifteen minutes to pace back and forth in the quiet waiting room until Sam told him, in no uncertain terms to sit back down. But it was useless. Up and down, up and down went Dean and Sabine longed to boil him in oil but instead she moved close to Sam and offered what comfort she could to the distraught younger Winchester.

"How long's it gonna take 'em to figure out what's wrong with him?" Dean was up again and on his feet asking the unanswerable yet again while Sabine toyed with the idea of covering his tongue with blisters.

The doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with Bobby Singer because, truth be told, he was both physically and mentally fine. He was just lost in a world of his own. A world where he was deaf, dumb and blind, a world created by Shax and a world in which he would continue to dwell for as long as Sabine wished.

Unlike her feelings toward Dean Winchester, Sabine was ambivalent toward the older hunter. She was neither fearful of him or of his prowess as a hunter. She was no haint or shape shifter or any other such urban legend; she was a witch and had, at times, literally eaten men like Bobby Singer for breakfast. She bore him no ill will but needed him in his infirmity to reach out to Sam, to make him stay close to home, close to her and when Sam turned mournful eyes to her and said, "I just lost my dad and I don't know what I'd do if I lost Bobby, too," she knew it was working.

As Sam looked into her eyes he suddenly realized how used to seeing her he was. He'd become used to her being around and suddenly he realized that the memory of loosing Jessica wasn't quit as painful. He leaned his head in close to her and said quietly, "You know, you're free to leave any time you want..."

Her eyes opened wide and her mouth dropped open and her mind began to race, onto the next spell, the next hex bag. Sam saw the panic in her eyes and took her small hand in his. "No, no, no. I don't want you to go," he said as his stomach actually sank at the thought of her doing just that.

Sam had been biding is time, waiting for Dean to make his move on the dark haired beauty and, although jealously would have reared its ugly head, he had been prepared to step back and let lust prevail. But now he wasn't so sure. Sabine seemed to be immune to his brother's good looks and quick wit and she was way too condescending towards him but Dean Winchester wasn't one to give up easily. If he wanted her, he'd get her.

But other than his questions about her origins and mental stability, and his suspicions about her poisoning him, Dean hadn't shown any real interest in their house guest. Even then he simply watched the two of them, heads together, with only mild interest and when he spied Bobby's doctor he jumped up to head him off at the pass leaving the two of them to wait. As he passed by he said to Sam in a loud stage whisper, "Go get her, Sammy."

Sabine eyed Dean evenly as he passed by making sure he was gone before she spoke. "Listen Sam, I know my situation is...unique...and I appreciate you letting me stay but I don't want to wear out my welcome."

She was going to leave and fear gripped Sam's heart and it showed in his eyes and her spirits soared. "You know you're welcome to stay as long as you need to...but with the way Bobby is...if he comes home...things could be kind of rough," he sighed and let her hand slip from his.

Taking his hand back and holding it between hers she replied, "I know Bobby's dear to you and I'd like to stay, give you a hand caring for him."

Sam's relief was immense. He didn't know if Bobby was going to live or die but if he was going to need care he wouldn't abandon him to a rest home or a hospice. With Sabine there to help the monumental task that could lay ahead didn't seen as daunting.

"I'll stay as long as he needs me. Besides, I think I kind of love the old guy," she lied and. when she conjured a single tear and let it slip down her pale cheek, she knew it was only a matter of time before Sam Winchester was hers.


	8. Chapter 8

Two days later Bobby Singer came home with them and when Sabine grew weary of caring for him she allowed him back in his own little world. As suddenly as he'd been struck down, he was back and in the pink of health and, unbeknownst to him, indebted to and allied with a witch. A medical miracle some said but it was a spell pure and simple and so very different from the one she now cast in the far corner of Singer Salvage Yard, a spell both tainted and difficult.

In her circle on the ground Sabine placed and lit a single candle as a beacon and spoke the invocation, "Pray thee now Lost Souls, take but a minute's rest and in thy rest find solace that thee might no longer wander. I do bind thee and constrain thee into mine will and power; that thee being thus bound, may come unto me in great humility, and to appear in thine circle before me visible, in fair form and shape of human kings, and to obey unto me in all things, whatsoever I shall desire, and that thee may not depart from me without mine discharge. And if thee do against mine precepts, I will promise unto thee that thee shall descend into the profound deepeness of the sea, except that thee do obey unto me."

Sabine knew that Lost Souls were drifting spirits that collect information unknown to the conjuror, information that would help her with her task at hand. As bearers of the light to the obscure corners of the realm and givers of truth and knowledge Lost Souls must avoid prolonged engagements because in reality they seek a home and to rest but they need to continue on their journey or be doomed to search forever.

The candle in the circle's center flared up momentarily then winked out and Sabine frowned and sighed impatiently. This was not going to be easy she realized and relighting the candle she began the invocation again. Having repeated it once more the flame grew and this time it threw light all around the circle and into the forest and she quickly stepped into the circle as three shapes approached her from out of the trees.

The first was the specter of a beautiful woman with long flowing blonde hair and shining silver armor that reflected the light of the candle a thousand fold. Sabine looked expectantly at her and when she opened her mouth a mournful and piteous cry resounded in the forest shaking the tree limbs. The witch held up her hand and commanded the spirit to cease her wailing. She knew the spirit would be of no use to her.

The second, a captain of the fleet with ship's lamp in hand, simply stood staring at her with hollow eyes and she commanded him to look away.

"They are neither easy to look upon nor pleasing to hear, are they witch?" the third specter spoke. He was a large bearded man dressed in chain mail with a crown of gold on his head that threw the light of the candle as did the lethal claymore he wielded with a heavily muscled arm, a sword which he stabbed into the ground breaking the circle in which she stood. Sabine's breathing quickened when he warned her in a gruff brogue, "You will not bid me to tarry overlong as you have these unfortunate others."

He swept his arm to encompass his fellow spirits and continued, "I will not be condemned to seek out everlastingly," and she knew why it had taken so long to call for the Lost Souls. They were loath to help her and with good reason.

In her long and fateful life she had called upon the Lost Souls often but had been selfish and held some longer than she should have, falsely offering them the home and rest for which they so fervently prayed. She had done so out of the selfish need to gather all the information she needed to bring about the downfall of her rivals or the everlasting love and adoration of those she desired. She now desired Sam Winchester and demanded information about his past.

"Máel Coluim mac Donnchadha, I desire one above all others," she called out to the specter and it shimmered in rage, "He is protected and I cannot spellbind him to me so I wish to know the way to his heart."

The big man snorted with disgust for her sinful, willful and wanton ways. And if he had not been summoned and therefore bound to do as she wished and if he had still been corporeal he would have burned her at the stake. But his time on earth was long over and he was now destined and compelled to bring the light.

"So you canna use other then your feminine wiles on him, a lost cause for one such as yourself, bereft of any and all but the illusion of that which would make you pleasing to a man."

"I had no trouble seducing you, you vain, long necked cockerel," she said smugly and she was right.

Sabine, a droch urchóideach cailleach, had only to look his way and the mighty king of the Scotts had forsaking his sainted wife Margaret and, like the dog that he was, had fallen to his knees and had mounted her like the bitch she was. Fr his trespass he was now doomed to drift through the afterlife for all of eternity and obey those who called to him.

But Máel Coluim mac Donnchadha had no information to impart for the very reason she could not spellbind the one she desired. Sam Winchester was protected, as was his brother. There were those among them who could help, his mother and his father, but to summon them would be dangerous to all those involved and he told her so.

Sabine listened and then hissed and spat upon him and shouted angrily, "Go now, take thy leave spirits unto the place predestinated and appointed for thee, where the eternal virtue of the highest hath appointed thee, until I shall call thee again. Be thou ready unto me and to my call, as often as I shall call thee, upon the promise and pain of everlasting damnation."

Putting out the candle and stuffing it in her jacket pocket Sabine covered the circle and her tracks as she made her way through the maze of rusting cars back to the house deep in thought. To call forth the spirits of John and Mary Winchester she would need something special and, as she looked toward the house, she knew that Dean Winchester had just what she needed.


	9. Chapter 9

It was the second night of the full moon and Sabine stood naked in her small dark room, moonlight bathing her skin as she placed three beeswax candles in a triangle in the center of a small table. Lighting the one at the top first then the one to the right and then finally the one to her left she placed one of Bobby's wife's good cut glass goblets filled with a cheap Shiraz equidistance between the candles. Into the glass she dropped a shining South Dakota state quarter.

Standing at the table's edge she took in a cleansing breath and began to speak softly so as to not disturb anyone else in the house. "Spirits of the earth, sky and sea, upon this night of the second full moon I beseech thee that thee intervene for mine part. Let no harm or evil come mine way, nay, neither bodily nor ghostly on this night and at this hour."

As she spoke she felt her skin begin to warm and running her fingers through her long hair she smiled and continued, "I summon thy power in the name of Baell, Paimon and Agares that mine request be attended and thine hands be laid firmly upon this night. Let suffer no more the empty coffer thy worker who hath called thee to this place. Upon fear of retribution, pain and punishment, cast forth thine legions to gather all that be mine due. Allow them keep not that which is mine but offer over instead at thy command. So, this worker doth ask and so by the power invoked in the names of the three, Baell, Paimon and Agares, shall it be so."

Sabine expected Baell to appear but an old man with pale haired and parchment dry skinned appeared in the moonlight and, although he held no hawk on his fist nor did he ride upon a crocodile, she knew it was Agares, Grand Duke and ruler of the eastern zone of Hell.

The stench of decay was overwhelming and Sabine watched as patches of ghostly white skin sloughed off as he moved closer to her, casting his malevolent eyes on her.

"Much as you desire, I have cast and spoken well the words and neither you nor the thirty one legions you command can harm me," she reminded him putting him in his place.

"It's true witch but it's only a matter of time before you misspeak and when you do you will not be able to run from me," he rasped but now kept his distance.

"But until that day you must do as I bid," she taunted him like a wicked child.

"You've summoned me with coin. What want you with wealth?" Agares asked, "To buy a soul?

It was not a soul she sought to buy but one given to her freely. "Not wealth," she said cryptically, "but an object of value to me."

"Of value to someone else as well if you can't just take it."

"Yes, it is and I dare not just take it. I might arouse his suspicion."

"Then someone needs to warn the fool..."

"But it won't be you!" she said sharply sticking her finger into his chest only to have it pass right through the paper thin tunic he wore and the dry membrane of his skin and finally into the black ooze incased therein, "I would have Dean Winchester's silver ring before this time tomorrow. I have much to do before I'm finished and even now he grows more and more suspicious."

"As well he should…before it's too late," the old man said backing away from her cruel touch. Lifting a bone thin arm more putrid skin fell to the floor and the odor of death grew stronger but with that motion his spell was cast and the skin under Dean's ring began to fester as he slept.

His usefulness done Sabine duly discharged Agares and put out the candles, first the one to her left, then the one to her right and finally the one at the top of the triangle. Fishing the quarter from the bottom of the glass she drank the wine and slipped the coin into the blanket chest, never to be spent.

Sabine threw on a robe and opened the windows to air out the room as best she could. She then picked up a broom and swept the remnants of the demon's shed into a dustpan and headed quietly down the stairs to throw the remains onto the fire that still burned in the parlor.

Bending low to make sure every trace of Agares burned, she saw Dean sitting at the kitchen table his hand soaking in a bowl of ice water. With broom and dustpan in hand she glided into the kitchen intending to return them to the pantry.

"Looking up at her Dean couldn't resist and said acidly, "Parking your car?" and she looked at him, her eyes blank, her brow furrowed. "You know...the bumper sticker...my other car's a broom," he sighed in frustration and tried to explain, "A witch."

"I don't have a car," she told him as she continued to stare at him and wondered if he truly knew or was just being an ass.

Dean snorted and said, "Yeah, I guess it is kind of hard to drive a car in a straight jacket."

An ass she concluded and sat down across the table from him. "What's wrong with your hand?" she asked solicitously as she watched his ring sparkle amongst the ice.

"I don't know. Five minutes ago I was sound asleep and now my finger's hurting like a son of a bitch," he told her and lifted it out of the water for her to see.

"Take off your ring," she suggested, "It looks a little red underneath," and, as if someone had heated the silver with a blowtorch, the seared skin beneath it peeled off when he slipped it from his finger.

"God damn," he hissed and dropped it onto the table. It did feel hot to the touch and he dunked his hand quickly back into the bowl and watched as the water turned pink with his blood.

Sabine picked up the ring, wiping it on the towel Dean had placed next to his bowl and asked, "Are you allergic to silver?"

Lifting his hand from the water he grimaced as the air hit it and shook his head, "I've been wearing it for years and no, I'm not a vampire."

"A vampire?" she said innocently and pressed his hand back into the water.

"Never mind," he mumbled as she got up and went to the refrigerator and pulled out what looked to be a long overlooked and extremely over ripe banana.

Peeling it she placed the meat into a small bowl and mashed it to within an inch of it's life as Dean watched with mild interest, the nasty looking burn on his finger and the throbbing of his hand keeping his mind otherwise occupied.

Sabine set the bowl of mashed fruit on the table in front of him and he grimaced at the nasty looking paste. She told him to stay put while she got something for his pain and he smiled when she returned with a bottle of vodka.

Sitting next to him she pulled his hand from the water and gently patted it dry. Then with a spoon she ladled up a small amount of the paste and dropped the dollop on his injured finger.

"What the hell," he sputtered and tried to pull his hand away but she held fast until the burn was evenly coated. He could feel a small amount of cooling relief as she wrapped gauze lightly around the poultice and he lifted his hand and sniffed and said, "You have got to be kidding."

"It's plantain and the juice is antibacterial. It contains an anti-inflammatory that speeds wound healing, stimulates the growth of new skin cells," she told him and, when he was about to complain again, she shoved a great spoonful into his mouth, "and it gives the immune system a boost."

The fruit was cool and sweet to the taste but instead of feeding him the rest she poured him a glass of the vodka. It was flavored with peppermint but was bitter and damned near undrinkable.

Never one to waste alcohol, Dean refused to spit it out even if she was trying to poison him and moments after his initial drink his pain was much less and he felt himself relaxing. After his second glassful his pain was completely gone or he just didn't care if he was in pain anymore. His anxiety and aggression levels had also bottomed out, even when Sabine reached to take the bottle from him.

"That's enough for now," she told him screwing the cap back on.

"What's…in there?" he asked swaying gently in his chair. His words definitely did not roll off his thick tongue and he wasn't all that surprised when she told him artemisia absinthium. He just laughed and said, "Wormwood."

"Absinth wormwood, grand wormwood..." she added.

"Here, here!" he said drunkenly and leaned well back in his chair.

"It has great pain relieving qualities," she assured him.

"And it's poisonous," he assured her but she already knew.

"In the wrong hands and in the wrong dose," she explained to him and added, "I've only given you enough to dull the pain so you can sleep...and enough to repel fleas and moths."

"That's always useful," he agreed standing up shakily, ready to head back to bed.

"Let me help you," she offered and took his arm as he walked unsteadily to the bottom of the stairs.

He wanted to pull away from her so she wouldn't have the advantage and the leverage to push him back down the stairs when they reached the top but she only led him to his door and told him to sleep well. Impulsively he grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her close and kissed her soundly and, like the ring which burned the palm of her hand as she held it, his lips seared hers and she didn't know how much longer she could go on without hurting Sam


	10. Chapter 10

Sabine hadn't eaten or drunk anything but water for four days and scribing the large circle and the smaller one within took all of her strength, the ground grown more solid as winter bore down harder each day. Finally it was complete and, wiping her hands on her jeans, Sabine turned to the boy.

She had found him hanging around the park, dressed completely in black, his greasy dark hair long and ragged, a certain hiding his sallow complexion and rat-like, almost fevered eyes. She had taken him under her wing and he now followed her every move as she cast her circles so eager to please and such easy prey.

"We must step into the center circle," she told him, "And whatever happens, don't step into the outer ring."

He looked at her with both adoration and fear and mumbled, "This isn't right. You haven't cast it right."

She gently brushed the hair from his eyes and laughed. "I thought you wanted me to teach you," she soothed, her false logic calming him, "I'm calling upon a great demon and we may need more protection than the one circle will afford us."

The boy knew he should leave, knew he was in way over his head, but she was so beautiful and so much more knowledgeable than the "Wiccans" at the local metaphysical store. She had already taught him how to light his cigarettes without benefit of lighter or match. A cheap magic trick the other kids had called it but he welcomed their laughter and ridicule and kept his mouth shut because Sabine had promised him that she would soon teach him how to make them pay.

But even the promise of great pain and suffering for those who dissed him didn't make him any less fearful.

Feeling his reluctance she grabbed his arm painfully and dragged him into the center circle with her. She then pulled Dean Winchester's silver ring from her jacket pocket and, holding it tightly in her right hand, she began to recite. "I conjure thee Paimon by the power..." she started but stopped when the boy said nothing. "Speak the words with me," she commanded peevishly and when he balked she placed a finger to his mouth and his gums began to bleed.

"Okay, okay," he capitulated, more afraid of her than of the spirit she might evoke.

Spitting blood onto the ground before him he was more than ready to recite with her the words she'd taught him because he didn't know if anything terrible would happen to him during the conjuring or not. He was however certain that if he didn't help her _**she**_ would do something else really, really bad to him.

She started again, this time in concert with the boy. "I conjure thee Paimon by the power of the everlasting virtue of the highest that thou shalt appear in my presence and do my bidding lest thee suffer the everlasting torment and suffering for thy disobedience. Let thee in my presence do no harm that no hair of my head or evil, bodily or ghostly befall me. Let thee in my presence allow no spirit take hold and linger beyond their calling so that thee may suffer for their trespass."

Sabine had barely finished the conjuration when Paimon, a liaison to the realm of the spirits with the ability to command the presence of a desired spirit for the purpose of communication and constrained by divine virtue to do as his conjuror bid, stood before them.

He was a powerfully built male demon but in contrast he had a beautiful, effeminate face and when he turned to Sabine and opened his mouth to speak, an unintelligible roar came out rattling the chains he wore around his neck.

Sabine turned to look at the boy who was frightened out of his wits and ready to bolt and she spoke evenly to him, trying to calm him. "It's okay. It's Paimon, one of the kings of hell and ruler of two hundred legions of demons," she told him.

Not realizing the demon was bound to obey her the boy started to literally shake in his boots and with a wave of her hand he could no longer move as she secured him inside the circle.

At the sound of his name, Paimon continued to roar until Sabine pointed to him and shouted, "I have conjured thee and ye will do as I command and I command that ye be silent."

The demon's sensuous, full-lipped mouth closed and he listened as she spoke.

"I wish to speak with two spirits, John and Mary Winchester," she told him and the demon vanished.

The boy breathed a sigh of relief but his reprieve was short lived when the hell king reappeared and told them, "I have the first of whom you seek." His voice was now calm and melodious and as he spoke the chains around his neck glowed slightly then disappeared altogether.

The boy looked at him with fear while Sabine looked upon him with suspicion but moments later a spirit appeared in front of her, bound in Paimon's own chains, his head bowed in submission.

"Why is he restrained?" she asked the king of hell and he told her, "Because he was reluctant to come. He has his own agenda."

"What scheme could a spirit have but to wander endlessly in the realm of the dead?" she queried and squeezed the ring still held fast in her hand.

"He would make his way back amongst the living if left to his own devices and desires," Paimon explained, "He stays close to a devil's gate as if he knows something the other spirits and demons do not. He cries out for his family and the gate rattles."

She recognized him right away the dark hair and eyes so like her beloved Sam's. But the eyes that stared at her now were filled with anguish and anger. "Your name, spirit?" she asked and the man bound in chains looked at her for a long time as if trying to remember.

Shrugging his broad shoulders, the weight of the chains crushing, he finally spoke up and her heart soared when he said in a voice bereft of any hope or happiness, "John Winchester."

Sabine was about to speak to John Winchester when Paimon disappeared once again. He returned a moment later, behind her this time, and holding on to a spirit, ethereally beautiful with long golden hair and the same haunted eyes.

"Mary," the spirit of John Winchester breathed and, upon hearing her name, the second spirit looked across the circle and tears formed in her eyes and began to flow down her pale cheeks. John moved to go to her, clockwise around the circle, but for every step he took she moved as many in the same direction. He reversed his course and began to move counterclockwise and she did the same and he cried out in frustration and pain.

"Move as you will but her steps will always mirror yours. In death, as it was in life, you shall never truly meet," Paimon explained, "Too many secrets, too many lies."

John pulled at Paimon's chains hoping to dislodge them and the demon simply laughed.

"You know I'm right," he added and ran his hand lovingly over Mary's hair, "Your wife traded your son's soul for your life and, if you had known, you might have killed her yourself."

"Never!" John shouted over Mary's cry.

"I'm so sorry," she cried and tried to move toward him. Through no wish of his own, he moved away from her and she cried, "I loved you so much... and I didn't know the true price."

Sabine and the boy turned within their circle trying to keep one or the other of the spirits in sight. They ignored Paimon but the hell king simply stood back and observed as the spirits tried vainly to go to one another.

"Mary, it's done," John said finally and stopping trying to comfort her.

"But Azazel had you trade you life for Dean's and now they're both so lost," she wailed.

John had no regrets and assured her, "If he gave me the same choice again, I'd take it in a heart beat."

Looking across the circle at him, her undying love shining in her eyes, Mary told him truthfully and painfully, "So would I," and John's chains grew heavier as did his sorrow.

Knowing that, to save him, his wife had unwittingly sacrificed herself and, in different ways, both of her sons and all for her love of him and he fell to his knees under the weight of the knowledge.

"But would Sam do the same for his brother should he be given the choice?" Sabine asked the two spirits.

Never knowing her youngest son, Mary turned to John for the answer.

"Sam loves Dean, would do anything for his brother," John told them and tried again to throw off the heavy chains. Azazel was still coming for Sammy and he need to be there when he did.

"Would he continue to hunt if Dean asked him to?" Sabine queried desperate to find a way to steal Sam's love and loyalty for herself.

John turned to her and said, "I don't know. Sam hates hunting, never wanted the life Azazel intends for him. All he ever wanted was to be a normal kid and, when he got older, to be a lawyer, to marry the woman of his dreams and to have a family."

"A family?" Sabine mused and wondered if it could be that simple.

"Before he started to hate me he once told me he wanted a daughter," John said and Sabine watched as tears welled up in his eyes, "And when I asked him why he didn't want a son he said he wanted a girl...so she would never be a hunter."

Mary's pain filled cry hung in the air and, for once in her long and wretched life, the witch actually felt sorry for someone other than herself. Having her answer she spoke quickly, "Go now, take thy leave spirits unto the place predestined and appointed for thee, where the eternal virtue of the highest hath appointed thee, until I shall call thee again. Be thou ready unto me and to my call, as often as I shall call thee, upon the promise and pain of everlasting damnation."

Sabine would never summon either again and the spirits of John and Mary Winchester disappeared back to where Paimon had first summoned them but the hell king remained.

The boy wondered why until Sabine told him, "If Paimon is summoned alone, some offering or sacrifice must be done and he will accept it," and before the boy could ask which offering or what sacrifice, the witch shoved him into the second circle and into the open and waiting arms of the demon king.


	11. Chapter 11

Sam watched as his brother lip locked Sabine and, before he had to watch another of his brother's seductions, he closed his door silently and sat down on the edge of his bed. After a few moments to even out his breathing he took stock of his feelings and what he wanted out of life at that moment.

A girlfriend would be nice - not that Sabine could ever take the place of Jess. Their mysterious angel of mercy, the one Dean called strange angel, was pretty and, if he remembered correctly back to the first time he had seen her, she had a smoking body but what he really liked about her was her intelligence and, up until now, the way she'd always put his brother in his place every chance she got.

Evidently her fortitude had finally crumbled and she'd succumbed to the Dean Winchester charm. He shouldn't have been surprised and wondered what had taken his brother so long and, if he were honest, he would have made a move on her if he thought he had a chance of getting her and a chance of keeping her. Thoroughly dejected he lay back on his bed and his thought turned sadly to Jess.

Five days later Sam could feel the tension in the air and he didn't think it was sexual. Sabine sat at the table, Dean's hand in hers, but only to examine his nearly healed finger and to slip his heretofore 'lost' ring back onto it. As much as Dean continued to flirt with her she just huffed and pronounced him 'snatched from the jaws of death' and perfectly fine.

"Hey, Sammy," Dean said as his brother walked into the kitchen and sniffed the air, "She made us blueberry pancakes, your favorite," but Sam just shrugged and reached for a cereal bowl and a box of Captain Crunch.

Bobby lifted an eyebrow as Sam took a seat next to him. His plate, nearly licked clean, sat before him and he wondered what was wrong with the boy. "You don't know what you're missing, son," the older hunter said to him but Sam knew exactly what he was missing and later that night he stood outside of her bedroom door and listened as she cried.

Sabine knew he was there and conjured up tears. Her false sorrow was not for the boy she'd callously sent to perdition the day before but for her father, the ignorant, highly religious man who had smothered the woman who bore her and, afraid of what he knew her to be, beat her nearly every day thereafter, trying to kill her or to drive her off.

Knocking softly Sam asked, "Is everything all right, Sabine?"

If he had seen her face he would have known that everything was far from all right and that things would only get worse but when she peaked out the door, her eyes red, her lashes wet with tears, Sam pushed his way into her room. She backed away from him and sat back down on her bed. Sitting down next to her he placed his arm around her and she leaned into him wiping her face with a tissue. "What is it? Did Dean do something?" he asked as his anger began to rise.

_Other than being incredibly annoying?,_ she thought but just shook her head and sighed. "I was just thinking about my father," she told him. Sabine had never shed a single tear for the tyrant and when he had died and was buried she had actually danced on his grave.

"Do you wanna tell me about him?" Sam asked solicitously and she nodded.

"I have mixed emotions where he's concerned," she revealed, "He was very hard working and his family meant everything to him. He was stern but fair. We all had to work to survive and it was so hard at times. I loved him but hated what he put us through after my mother died." She felt Sam move slightly and knew she'd struck a chord when he stiffened and she turned to him with concern in her eyes. "I'm sorry," she started hesitantly, "I know your father just died. I didn't mean to bring back sad memories."

Sam pulled her closer again and told her, "It's okay. I was just thinking of him, how he sounds a lot like your father, you know, ruled with an iron fist...in a chain mail glove," and she laughed, wiping more tears from her eyes. "What happened to him," he asked her and she told him.

"When I was ten his horse stumbled and they fell. The beast rolled over on him and broke both of his legs and crushed his pelvis. He lay there for days before anyone found him, predators slowly eating away at him. He must have suffered terribly," she said with a sob.

Of all this she was certain because she had caused the horse to fall and the rider to be thrown and crushed. She had summoned the wolves and the crows and let them eat only enough to cause him excruciating pain then shooed them away with torches and magic. It had taken him three days to finally die from blood loss. Never once did he fully loose consciousness and never once did he open his eyes and not see her smiling face.

"I'm sorry. That must have been hard for you."

"To this day, I still have strong feelings for him," she said truthfully, but the feelings weren't those of a daughter's love for her father, they were fear and loathing, "I don't want to talk about him anymore. Tell me about your father."

"When I was born, I suppose he was just a normal guy with a beautiful, loving wife and two kids, a mortgage and a thriving business. But when I turned six months old everything changed. My mom died under mysterious circumstances and right after that we hit the road. My dad searched compulsively for the thing that killed her while Dean took care of me."

"The thing?" she asked pulling away and Sam wanted to cut out his tongue.

"Yeah, he said it was a demon with yellow eyes. Crazy, huh?"

"Not so much. I've seen some pretty weird things in my life," she admitted after a long silence, "That's why I was...the way you found me. I was tired of everyone thinking I was crazy so I just...left."

As Sam listened to her tale of woe he believed he'd found a kindred spirit, or at least someone who hadn't run screaming into the night at the first mention of the supernatural and he breathed a sigh of relief. "Sometimes I'd just like to leave, too. Leave this all behind, have a normal life."

"Oh, Sammy," she said and conjured up even more tears for him and turned to hug him.

When he heard her call him Sammy his heart beat a little faster and he took the chance to lean down and gently kissed her and she responded, shyly at first, then more passionately, more demanding and the couple fell back on her small bed, necking like teenagers until Sam was sure Sabine didn't care for or about his brother at all.

Dean Winchester and his kiss were forgotten as Sabine stood up and stripped off her nightgown. Sam dropped his sweats to the floor and climbed into the bed with her and when they made love it was glorious and breathtaking and all consuming, like the fire that had taken his mother. Sam didn't care because he knew he loved her now and that she loved him, beyond all reason.

To assure that his love was hers and hers alone, as he slept in her bed, Sabine locked herself in the bathroom and placed three candles in a triangle on the tile floor, the top one silver for the moon, the left one brown for the earth and the one to the right blue for water. In the center of the candles she placed a single rose and, picking a thorn from the discarded stem, she pricked her finger and squeezed three drops of blood onto the blossom. Her vile fluid scorched the soft red petals and turned them black whenever it touched and as she knelt before her altar she chanted, "Sweet as the rose may be, and as strong as the thorn, from this union of flesh and spirit, my daughter is born."


	12. Chapter 12

An early spring rain fell and softened the thawing earth. Sabine took a piece of wood from the pocket of her jacket and scratched in the ground until she'd completed a circle into which she stepped. Lifting her arms she spoke firmly and with authority, "I call upon Orimoth, Belimoth and Lymocke. I conjure thee up by the names of the angels Satur and Azimor that ye attend to me in this hour and do send me a spirit Zepar, Duke and leader of twenty-six legions, that he may appear as the soldier and that he shall fulfill my commandments and desires and that the understanding of my words shall linger with him for so long as I shall see fit and proper."

Safe within the confines of the circle and holding a pentagram for protection she felt it grow warm in her hand and she knew Zepar was close by. As she waited in the darkness a soldier, dressed in the Kevlar and camouflage of the desert and carrying an M4 carbine, stepped into the light of the fire and stared at her. It was the hardened stare of a battle weary warrior and his deep voice rumbled in his broad, muscular chest as he asked, "What is it that you desire?"

"Absolute and unconditional love," she told the soldier.

He knew that it was envy, lust and jealousy that she sought from him and the soldier turned his head in the direction of the house and listened. What he heard and what he knew at that moment disgusted him. "You would turn brother against brother, witch?"

"Aye, I would separate them through betrayal, by distance and time and I command you to aid and abet me."

Zepar's hooded black eyes turned downward before she could see the anger in them and he had no choice but to ask, "How strong do you want this...'love'?"

"I need his love for me to be stronger than his love for his father, stronger than his love for his mother and stronger even than his love of his only brother."

The Duke of hell knew well the love of a brother, his brothers in arms, and glared at her, "There is no love stronger than that of a man for his brother."

Taking in a breath Sabine repeated slowly and with finality, "Stronger than his love for his father, stronger than his love for his mother and stronger even than the love for his brother." She held out a photograph of Sam and Dean in better times standing shoulder to shoulder, each of them smiling.

Zepar transferred his weapon from his right hand to his left and grabbed the snapshot she held out. Looking at it he committed the faces to memory and handed it back to the witch and, as much as it displeased him, he could only obey.

Sabine, with a voice still clear and strong, invoked the spirit to, "Go now, take thy leave spirit unto the place predestinated and appointed for thee and be thou ready to serve me upon the promise and pain of everlasting damnation."

When Zepar was gone and away she tore the photograph in half separating the brothers and touched the edge of both pieces to the flame of the candle. After it had burned down to ashes she buried them in the small cemetery at the center of town and headed out to meet up with Sam.

Dean sat at the bar at the Dew Drop Inn nursing another whiskey along with his bruised ego. With the help of his friend Jack Daniels he was trying to get past the fact that earlier in the day he had suggested that he and Sammy get off of their dead asses and find something to hunt and Sam had made it perfectly clear that he wanted to be with Sabine, to try and have a normal life with her and to leave behind the insanity of hunting.

Oh, he knew his brother was banging her although they tried to hide it. Hell, even Bobby had figured it out and when little Sammy was happy, big Sammy was happy, too. But to willingly give up the thrill of the hunt, not to mention the crappy motel rooms, the greasy, calorie laden sometimes completely inedible food, the cuts, the bruises, the knife wounds, the gunshots. There was only one explanation, he concluded, and, like the old song Bobby liked to sing in the shower, Sam was no doubt bewitched, bothered and bewildered.

Dean thought that spending the evening with Jack, Johnny and Jose would help but, even after reminding Sam of the horrible way in which the yellow eyed demon had pulled him back into the fold so to speak, his brother was still adamant about quitting. So Dean sat crying in his whiskey, butt hurt because his brother had chosen a girl instead of him to spend the rest of his life with. _Imagine that_, he thought and he had to laugh.

Twisting on his stool Dean leaned back, elbows on the bar, to watch his brother and his girlfriend shoot pool, something Sam did fairly well and something Sabine should not have even attempted. As he watched them Sam leaned over her to help her set up her shot and Sabine turned her head to smile up at him and Dean wondered if he was simply jealous. _Nah_, he thought and turned as the door of the bar opened and a hulk of a man came inside wrapped up in a camo jacket sodden through with the rain.

Pulling off his tan beret Dean noticed the decidedly military buzz cut as the man sat down two bar stool over from him and shucked off his jacket. He wore army fatigues, the chevron of a Command Sergeant Major velcroed to his chest and a nametag with the name Zepar over his right hand pocket. U. S. Army was patched over his heart and attached to his left shoulder was a Ranger patch and a unit insignia indicating he had deployed. When this man deployed, Dean guessed correctly, he'd probably done a lot of damage.

"Bartender, a drink here for my friend," Dean said and when the man turned his head he smiled coldly as Dean lifted his glass in a salute.

"Thanks," the soldier said and ordered a beer while Dean continued to watch Sam and Sabine. He thought that seriously they should probably get a room somewhere or go home before they got everybody else in the bar all hot and bothered. A few moments later Sergeant Zepar, beer in hand, got off of his stool and crossed the bar to the pool table passing Sam as the younger Winchester made his way to the bar for another beer.

Standing between his brother and Bobby Sam placed his empty beer bottle on the highly polished wood surface of the bar while Dean watched from his perch on his stool as the soldier spoke to Sabine. He elbowed Sam in the side as the soldier then began a full frontal attack on Sam's position and on his girlfriend.

"Dude," Dean said under his breath, "Rambo's cuttin' in on your action," and Sam turned just in time to see the soldier caress Sabine's ass as she leaned over to make another shot.

Leaving his beer on the bar he started back to the pool table but Bobby grabbed his arm and pulled him back to warn him, "Don't do anything stupid, Sam."

Sam pulled free of his grip and walked up to confront the soldier. Neither Dean nor Bobby could hear the conversation over the music but they did see the ramifications as the Sergeant hauled back and hit Sam square in the face, sending him staggering back into the wall knocking the racked pool cues nosily to the floor. He then grabbed Sabine by the hair and, shouting something about a cock tease, pushed her up against the wall.

Bobby and Dean both rushed the soldier only to be thrown off like a couple of irritating bugs and when Dean saw Sam struggling to get back up on his feet he ordered Bobby to take him outside.

"And what are you gonna do?" Bobby asked bending over to grab Sam's arm to pull him the rest of the way up.

"What I do best," Dean retorted as the older hunter dragged Sam toward the door, "Save a damsel in distress while trying not to hurt soldier boy's fists with my face." It turned out to be easier than Dean thought.

The soldier roughly pushed Sabine out of the way and hit Dean in the mouth, splitting his knuckles on his teeth. Dean did manage to get in a good right cross before the soldier, tired of hitting him, said something about the bitch not being worth it and grabbed his beret and jacket, pushed the bartender out of the way and left the bar.

Sabine ran into the ladies room and Dean followed her wiping blood from his split lip onto the back of his hand. He spotted her leaning over one of the sinks, hands white knuckled as she gripped the edges trying her best not to cry. He touched her shoulder gently and she whirled around, her eyes brimming with unshed tears.

Always a sucker for a crying woman, Dean thought, _don't you cry Sabine, don't you dare cry_. But when two fat tears slipped down her cheeks he knew he was doomed and he took her in his arm to offer her comfort. She lifted her face to his and her lips touched his, gently at first, then more demanding and he was suddenly kissing her back.

Without even thinking Dean pushed her back up against the sink and she moaned as he lifted her up. Her legs straddled his waist and before he realized that he was doing something completely insane and completely wrong he was fucking her, slamming her forcefully against the sink and she was urging him on and kissing him like she wanted to devour him.

He groaned out his release and as suddenly as she'd burned red hot for him Sabine froze and cried out, "No don't! Stop, please!" She then scratched him on the face and pushed him away forcefully.

Dean, tangled in his jeans, stumbled backwards directly into his brother and Bobby while Sabine crumbled to the floor, sobbing wretchedly. Sam shoved Dean out of his way and took her in his arms and steadied her while she pulled up her panties and clutched her torn blouse modestly with shaking hands. She then grabbed him in a death grip and begged him to take her home. Sam covered her with his jacket and refusing to listen to or to even look at his brother they headed for the door.

Bobby stood silently while Dean hurriedly pulled up his pants and, when he was sure they were alone, he turned to Dean, a look of disgust on his face, and asked him rhetorically, "You just can't help it, can you?"

"Listen Bobby," Dean said trying to defend himself, "I don't know what happened. I was only trying to comfort her and she was…all over me."

"I can tell," Bobby said acidly and grabbed Dean's chin turning his face to the mirror so the younger hunter could see the angry, bleeding gouges in his cheek clearly.

Turning back Dean looked beseeching at him but Bobby laid into him again, "Are you that jealous, that petty, that you'd do this to your own brother? Take away what little happiness the kid has ever known?"

"Bobby, I swear I didn't mean for it to happen. I just came in to see if she was all right."

"You better hope she is, stud," Bobby warned him angrily, "because if anything happens to that baby she's carrying..."

Bobby continued to berate him but Dean didn't hear anything else after the words 'baby she's carrying'. He never bothered to excuse himself or to say good-bye or to tell Bobby to go fuck himself because she _had_come on to him, Dean simply walked out of the bathroom, out of the bar and headed back to Bobby's. Once there he avoided Sam at all costs, packed up his meager belongings, got into the Impala and headed for the interstate.

As he drove, Metallica blasting out of the speakers, his mind going a mile a minute, his headlights lit up a lone soldier walking on the side of the road. Dean pulled over to offer him a lift but as the Impala rolled to a stop he looked into the rear view mirror and couldn't see him. When he stepped out into the rain and walked to the rear of the car the road behind him was dark and empty.


	13. Chapter 13

"Well, are you ready to ask him to come home?" Bobby asked Sam as the two of them watched Sabine and marveled at the way she moved so effortlessly around the kitchen despite being a week overdue.

The woman never complained and Sam thought she would be happy being pregnant forever but he was anxious, anxious and scared shitless, and he didn't want to have to worry about Sabine's reaction if Dean did actually come home.

"Bobby, I told you before Dean knows how to get in touch with me," he said and turned his eyes back to his laptop, "He's gotta know by now that I've given up hunting and that I'm back in school and that's probably why he hasn't called. He thinks I quit on him…on dad."

"Oh, I think it's probably that five hundred pound gorilla that's gonna be sitting in the room with you and him and Sabine that keeps him livin' in that god awful motel when he's not out hunting."

"It was total bullshit, Bobby." Sam said, his anger still bubbling just below the surface.

"It was major bullshit, Sam. I know it and you know it and I'm pretty sure Dean knows it, too, or he'd have been back a long time ago. I'm not sayin' that things will go back to the way they were between you two, all I'm gettin' at is that one of you needs to make the effort..."

"And what, Bobby?" Sam wanted to know seeing no way to repair the rift between them.

"And maybe you can forgive him," he suggested but his words fell on deaf ears.

"Well, are you ready to come home?" Bobby asked Dean and the younger hunter shook his head and continued to chew complacently on a cheeseburger.

The diner in which he and Bobby sat was a throwback to the fifties. Not one of those chain restaurants with the bright neon, loud rock music and sassy waitresses but one that time had simply forgotten…kind of like how his brother had forgotten him.

"Are you ever gonna talk to him again?"

"He knows my number," Dean said and took another bite.

"It seems to me that maybe you should make the first move, apologize to him, to the girl."

"No way, Bobby," he came back adamantly, "If he wants to believe that I attacked his girlfriend, so be it. She knows what really happened. Hell, she should apologize to me."

Bobby lifted his coffee cup to his lips and sipped the scalding brew; his forehead wrinkled in consternation, his mission to reunite the brothers before the birth of Sam's baby turning to absolute, unadulterated shit. "You never have liked her, have you? Maybe you're just..." he started.

"Don't even go there, Bobby," Dean said angrily and dropped his burger back into the red plastic basket, "I'd never cock block my own brother."

Bobby looked around in embarrassment to see if anyone had heard Dean's declaration but no one seemed to be listening. "Maybe not on purpose," Bobby started but Dean shook his head adamantly.

"Not ever! Especially if I thought he was really interested in a girl and if the girl was truly interested in him...and half way sane."

Bobby had been living with Sabine for the better part of a year and owed her for nursing him back to health. And okay, she was a little eccentric but she was as sharp as a tack and she took good care of Sam and him both and he was positive the kid loved her.

Dean could see the wheels turning and, by the set of the older hunter's mouth, he knew Bobby wasn't going to agree with his assessment of Sabine, ever. His appetite spoiled, Dean pushed the remainder of the world's best cheeseburger away and took a drink of his Coke determined to make his concerns known anyway. "What about the first time we ever saw her? She was buck naked, dancing in the snow."

"And you've never done that?" Bobby asked and Dean's mouth snapped shut.

He'd done a lot of crazy things when he'd been drunk, many of them while naked so he gave that one to Bobby. "She's never once mentioned her family or where she came from or..."

"She told Sam all about her father, how much she loved him and hated him at the same time, how much he was like your dad..."

"Bullshit!" Dean closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, the beginnings of a headache starting to form.

Bobby knew he'd taken the wrong tack with the John Winchester comparison and changed tactics. "Look, it doesn't really matter if she comes from a good family or if we like her or not. Your brother loves her and she loves him and she's having a baby, your niece or nephew, and there ain't a god damned thing you can do about it...except continue to be a total dick head to your only brother."

But Dean had been hurt, probably more hurt than he'd ever been in his life. His brother had condemned him without even considering that there might be extenuating circumstances or another side to the story. With his continued silence Sammy had tried and convicted him of being a complete and utter douche bag.

Although it was never far from his mind Dean tried to put the incident out of his mind but after his discussion with Bobby it was useless. His groin tightened and he knew that, in the same circumstance, he would do Sabine again in a New York minute and that his attraction to her was not only morally wrong but also reeked of something other than just plain old chemistry. The feeling that something was rotten in the state of South Dakota assailed him again, as it had so many times over the past few months.

Bobby's cell phone began to play, Hold on, I'm Comin' by Sam and Dave and he checked the screen before flipping it open. "Yeah, Sam." Bobby said and listened intently for a few more moments before adding, "I'll head over now." Flipping the phone closed he slipping it back into his pocket and chugged the remainder of his coffee. "That was Sam, they're at the hospital," he told Dean and with a smile of wonderment added, "Your baby brother's gonna be a daddy any minute now," and Dean's insides turned cold.

Bobby stood and threw down a couple of dollar bills onto the table and looked expectantly at Dean who continued to just sit, hands clasped on the table in front of him and asked, "Well, are you comin'?"

Dean shook his head the ache behind his eyes increasing, "No, Bobby. I don't think either of them would appreciate it I showed up. This is a special time for Sammy and I'd just be in the way." His words sounded good but his feelings were far from magnanimous. He knew that if he were to go he was sure to get into it with Sammy and frankly he didn't trust himself around Sabine because sometimes he wanted to kiss her and at others he wanted to kill her.

"Well then, I guess I'll see ya' round," Bobby said and pulled his cap down tighter on his head as he heading to the door.

The hospital was fairly small and called a 'birthing center' and everywhere Bobby looked he saw pregnant women. He checked with the admitting nurse and was led to one of the birthing suites and watched as Sam tried his best to remember what he'd been taught in Lamaze class.

Every time Sabine moaned or grunted or whispered what he knew must be curses under her breath Sam looked like he wanted to bolt. But to his credit the younger Winchester sucked it up and did an admirable job of hee'ing and who'ing with Sabine through the pain and in less than an hour Sam stood at her side as she was delivered of a baby girl.

The baby was beautiful and perfect in every way. Ten toes and ten fingers, curly dark hair crowning her head but try as they might, they never could get her to take a breath through her perfect turned up nose or tiny rose bud lips and, after long agonizing hours, Sam finally held his daughter and rocked her in his arms as tears streamed down his cheek in the darkness of the hospital morgue.


	14. Chapter 14

"Is this the baby you lost last night?" the morgue tech asked lifting the green receiving blanket bordered with little yellow bunnies someone had covered the body with.

"Yeah," said a nurse sadly, "But the father is adamant, no autopsy. The mother became hysterical when I mentioned it so there's nothing for you to do but wait for some kind of arrangements to be made."

"It's a crying shame. She looks just like a little angel," the tech said and lowered the blanket, "Did they take it hard?"

"Well, of course they did," the nurse said snippily but she was not above gossiping, "When the priest came in to try and baptize the infant and to give her last rights the mother came unglued. She got out of the bed and lunged at him, screaming that it was all his fault. If the dad hadn't caught her I think she would have torn him limb from limb."

"Grief does strange things to people," the tech suggested, "So what happens now?"

"I go back upstairs and you get the paperwork ready," the nurse told him.

Before she could leave he asked, "Are they using Kripke's Mortuary?"

"Nope, no funeral home, no church service, just a private burial at Mt. Pleasant."

"Not St Michael's?"

"Not after the mom's outburst."

"Well, Mt. Pleasant's got a beautiful children's section," the tech recalled, "With all the pinwheels and the fat little cherubs."

"Yeah, and it's possibly the saddest place on earth," the nurse said with a sigh, "I'll talk to you later."

Watching the door close behind the nurse the tech sat down at a banged up metal desk and began searching for a release form when a scruffy looking man in a worn flannel shirt, jeans and a ball cap came through the door.

"Can I help you?"

"Yeah, I'm here...regarding...baby Winchester."

"Okay, I'm gonna to need you to fill out some paper work. Are you a relative or a representative of the funeral home?"

"Neither, I'm a friend."

The tech told him he couldn't authorize the release of a body to a friend, no matter how close, and Bobby pulled Sam's power of attorney from his pocket. After a minimal amount of time and with death certificate in hand the tech met Bobby at the morgue's back entrance and slipped baby Mary Elizabeth Winchester into a tiny wooden coffin in the back seat of Bobby's car.

"You do know that not embalming...will..ah, you know...dust to dust," the tech told him as he slipped into the drivers seat.

Bobby looked up at the young man and unsmiling, simply said, "Dust to dust, the way it should be," even though he knew that the best way to respect the dead was to burn the body so that it couldn't be taken over by a demon.

Sam had chosen burial over cremation because who in his right mind would disturb the final resting place of an innocent child.

"Please don't send me to hell," Dean whispered furtively to whoever or whatever might be listening in the dark as his spade sliced easily into the freshly turned earth. Each time he bent to scoop up the dirt he couldn't help but see the simple name etched into the surface of the granite headstone in the lantern's glow. And each time he read it, it carved out a piece of his heart just as his shovel carved out another chunk of earth in his unthinkable quest to breach the baby's final resting place.

Dean imagined he saw tears running down the faces of the cherubs resting atop the markers on the adjoining plots but he was determined to follow thorough and reveal all of Sabine's secrets. And if, by some chance, he were wrong only God and the devil would know what he'd done.

The blade of the shovel finally struck the tiny coffin, marring the smooth finish, and he cursed aloud and thought he heard laughter as he got into the hole and down on his knees to finish the rest of the work by hand. A few minutes later he lifted the coffin up out of the dirt and onto his knees. Brushing it off he reached up and placed it onto the grass then jumped out of the hole.

He knelt by the small box and tried to catch his breath as he stared at the plain pine box, hurriedly but still lovingly constructed by Bobby Singer. His breathing never returned to normal as the wind moved softly through the trees and Dean listened, sure his secret visit to the graveyard in the dead of night was the stuff such whispers were made of, and he slowly lifted the cover

Dean sucked in a breath when he saw the tiny body dressed in a frilly dress nestled in the padded white silk lined box, her eyes closed as if she were just asleep, a sight that should have brought him to tears but in reality only chilled him to the bone. Pulling his knife from his belt Dean's hands shook as he placed the blade to the infant's chest and, swallowing the lump in his throat, he pushed.

Instead of feeling small bones break and separate the knife sank easily into the tiny body. Tearing the dress that bound it, the baby's body split wide open with a hiss, like a nail puncturing an inflated tire, and soft red tissue oozed out of the rupture. The beautiful casing collapsed in on itself. There were no bones or organs inside to keep the shape of the baby girl and, moping the sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his shirt, Dean stood up and bent over at the waist and promptly threw up.

Even from inside his garage Bobby could hear the Impala as it pulled into the drive and, wiping his hands on a handy rag, he wondered how Dean could even show his face. The boy hadn't gone to the hospital, hell; he hadn't even gone to the cemetery, a fact that had hurt his brother badly and now he was walking into his shop as if nothing had happened.

"You've got some nerve showing up here," Bobby said.

The hunter's voice was calm but Dean could hear the anger in it. "I went to the cemetery," Dean told him.

Bobby saw the dirt smeared all over Dean's knees and his shirt and the dark smudges on his face and he went ballistic. "Tell me you didn't, you son of a bitch!' he shouted and took a swing that connected with Dean's jaw.

"Wait a minute. It's not what you think," Dean said in his defense, "Okay, it is but..."

Bobby clocked him a second time and pushed him up against the wall of the shop.

"What did you do?" he demanded, his forearm pressed up against Dean's throat.

Pushing the older hunter away and gasping for breath Dean tried to explain. "Okay! I went to the cemetery and dug up the coffin..."

"You desecrated your brother's baby's grave?"

Bobby was on him again shoving him hard toward the door and Dean tried again to explain. "It was never really a baby!" he shouted, "It was like a piece of Sabine's tail broke off and formed a fetus. It had some kind of awful smelling bloody pulp inside but no bones, no organs, nothing human," and, when Bobby stared at him incredulously, he begged, "You gotta believe me. It wasn't a mistake of nature. It was an abomination of evil."

Bobby either wouldn't or couldn't hear the truth in Dean's words and, giving him one final shove, yelled, "Get the hell out of here before I kill you myself!"


	15. Chapter 15

Sam stepped away from the window when the Impala's taillights disappeared into the dark of the night. He looked first to Sabine, who sat morosely rocking slowly back and forth in a rocking chair, then to Bobby who had just come in from outside wiping his hands on a greasy rag. "He didn't want to come in?" he asked the older hunter.

Bobby smiled sadly and said, "I guess he figured he wouldn't be welcome."

"He never even came to the hospital," Sabine reminded Sam and he felt a stab of pain as if her observation had barbs.

Sam had no excuses for his brother or his behavior and had tried his best to put it, and him, out of his mind. But the loss of his child had brought home to him just how important family, or what was left of his, was to him. "I'm going out for awhile," Sam said and grabbe his jacket from the hall tree by the front door, "You'll be okay?"

Sabine nodded her head and smiled sadly hoping he would reconsider and stay with her. But a parody of a smile crossed Sam's lips and he went anyway. The witch strongly suspected he had gone to find his brother and later that evening, as she stood among the wavering trees surrounding her sanctuary of evil, she drew a large circle on the ground.

It was a circle large enough to hold man or beast and one she was careful not to step into as she chanted, "I conjure thee Bileth to appear, before the conjuration be read over four times, and that visible to appear, as the conjuration is written, and to give me good counsel at all times, and to come by those things hidden and secret, and all other things that is to do me pleasure, and to fulfill my will, without any deceit or tarrying; nor yet that thou shalt have any power of my body or soul, earthly or ghostly, nor yet to perish so much of my body as one hair of my head. I conjure thee Bileth by these words, and by their virtues and powers, I charge and bind thee by the virtue thereof, to be obedient unto me, and to all the words aforesaid, and this bond to stand between thee and me, upon pain of everlasting punishment and suffering, Fiat, fiat, fiat, Amen."

To the sound of trumpets that only she could hear Bileth, the great and terrible ruler of eighty-five legions of demons, appeared perched upon his pale horse standing just outside the scribed circle, his hair standing on end in fiery spirals, a flaming beard down to his waist. A bloody froth sprayed from the animal's muzzle as furious curses and oaths spewed forth from the demon king.

"Enter unto the circle, Bileth, for I have need of your power and strength," Sabine commanded but the conjured remained where they had appeared and the demon king grew angrier still.

Gathering her courage against such power and rage Sabine raised a branch broken from an oak tree and pointed it to the east and to the south, then drew a triangle around yet intersecting the circle. "Again I say, enter unto the circle, Bileth, for I have need of your power and strength," Sabine commanded a second time.

The power of the triangle was too strong and horse and rider moved easily through it and into the circle where they ceased all physical threats and vile accusations. "I was warned about a powerful witch who conjures for that which eludes her," Bileth said, "You must be she."

Ignoring his barb Sabine told him, "I will have all I want and more. There is just one obstacle standing in my way."

"And you have called me from my rightful place upon the seventh throne to deal with this tiny and insignificant obstacle when Heaven and Hell pray and prepare for war and the commencement of Armegeddon?"

"I care not for the petty bickering of angels and demons; I care only for me and mine."

Bileth raged inside and his horse reared up but he was bound by the conjuration to do as he was bid. "Very well," he said disdainfully, "What is your obstacle?"

"A mortal man named Dean Winchester. I wish him dead."

When she invoked the name Deam Winchester Beleth's red eyes blazed and his horse blew flames from it nostrils. "I cannot strike him dead," the demon said cryptically, "But I can cause him illness and great suffering."

"But I want him dead!" Sabine shouted.

"To assure his brother's undying love and affection?" Bileth asked mockingly, "What is written shall come to pass but I cannot kill Dean Winchester. That you must do yourself."

"But he is protected," she hissed and he nodded.

"By the continued sacrifices of his father," Bileth said with a smile recalling John Winchester's seemingly endless suffering.

"Then what would you have me do?" the witch asked petulantly and stamped her foot like a spoiled child.

"He cannot be killed. Not by my hand nor yours," Bileth said thoughtfully, "But he can be rendered to the flames of hell...by his own."

"Then do your best to make him suffer. Break his bones; make him cough up bloody flux and I will do the rest," and, with her chanted release, the demon and the horse he rode in on were gone.


	16. Chapter 16

The tinkling of the tiny bell above the door drew the woman's gaze from the book she was reading to the tall lanky form standing in her doorway. Pushing a long tendril of dark hair behind one ear she took off and rested her glasses on the countertop. "I was wondering when you'd show up," she said in a voice husky and rich from alcohol and cigarettes, "Bobby used to come in quite often but not so much anymore…after his…ah, illness."

Sam's eyebrow quirked at her pronunciation of her last word and he looked at her questioningly as he walked around the intimate shop filled with bell, book and candle and wondered if she knew something he didn't? "I didn't know Bobby was into Wicca?" he ventured and she snorted.

"Oh, he's not," she assured him, "But my reference library rocks and so does my scotch."

Sam continued to pace almost nervously and, wanting to put him at ease, the woman told him her name was Beth, short for Elizabeth. "It means God's promise," she told him and Sam looked at her quizzically.

"You were expecting Galadriel or maybe Phoebe Halliwell or even Rowena Ravenclaw?" she said and Sam smiled because it was exactly what he had expected from the owner of a shop called LadyHawke's. "So tell me Sam Winchester, how can I help you?" Beth asked running her hand over the top of an ornately decorated Tarot deck.

"Can those really tell the truth?"

"Only if you believe…and I can see by the look in your eyes that you think readings are total bullshit."

"Well?" Sam challenged.

She sighed and told him, "And right you are, Sammy."

"So you can't help me," Sam replied. He was suddenly in a hurry to leave, to get back to Sabine, "Thanks anyway."

"Hold on there," Beth said and grabbed his cold hand, "There are other ways of ferreting out the truth," she told him and before he could get away she led him to a small enclave in the back room. "Take a load off," she said indicating a plain wooden table around which three chairs sat, "I need a few things."

Sam sat down, rubbed his arms as a sudden chill permeated the room and watched as Beth rummaged amongst various items on her shelves.

"So you're after the truth, huh?" she asked as she placed a beeswax candle on the table and then placed a sheet of paper on the table in front of him. Sam nodded and she continued, "Truth can only be summoned in honesty and good will. Truth cannot be tricked or cheated and will not heed the frivolous call."

"This is very serious," Sam assured her, his eyes clear and earnest as he glanced up at her.

"Life and death serious?"

Sam thought for a moment then slowly nodded.

"Then take this piece of paper and tear two pieces the length of three fingers and the breadth of two fingers and on each one, write the choices from which Truth shall choose."

Sam did as he was instructed while she went to the small kitchen area at the back of the storeroom. She returned with a bowl of clear water and a marker and he watched as she lit the candle and took the marker and drew a circle around the bowl on the tabletop. She made sure that she kept her hands well away from the circle and took the seat directly across from him and spoke in a loud but somber voice. "In the name of Vuall, I summon thee Truth that thee may choose of these," she pointed to Sam's torn pieces of paper, "and show that which is pure. By the virtue of the highest of thee, I command thee come forth lest thee suffer the pain of disobedience."

Sam did as he was then instructed and folded each piece of paper in half and, careful to not let his hand cross into the circle, he tossed them into the bowl.

"The first to unfold will be the truth," Beth told him, "The last will be the lie."

As the two of them watched the water intently the first to unfold was the piece of paper on which he had written the name Sabine. On the last to open he had written the name of his brother.

"Truth has made its choice, " she said to Sam and to the spirit she said, "Go now, take thy leave spirit, unto the place predestined and appointed for thee, where the eternal virtue of the highest hath appointed thee, until I shall call thee again. Be thou ready unto me and to my call, as often as I shall call thee, upon the promise and pain of everlasting damnation!" and blew out the candle.

Stepping quickly out the back door of her shop she dumped the water form the bowl on a patch of freshly turned earth and returned to the table, a bottle of JW Blue and two glasses in her hand. Pouring Sam a stiff one she said, "I noticed you went kind of pale on me there. Not what you'd hoped for."

Sam took a sip of the smooth liquor and sighed sadly, "Not what I'd hoped for...but what I suspected."


	17. Chapter 17

Dean, well hidden in the shadows, watched as Sabine returned to the house. Her face was flushed and beautiful in her excitement and he wondered what had gone on in the nether reaches of Bobby's 'bone yard'. He would have attributed her sparkling eyes and radiant face to that of a woman who'd been seriously fucked but Sam wasn't back from 'wherever' and he was itching to catch the bitch red handed at whatever she was up to.

Throwing caution to the wind Dean came into full sunlight and followed a surprisingly well wore path to the far reaches of the salvage yard. He hadn't been to the lower forty since he and Sammy had played hide and seek there as kids but now, instead of the familiar smell of used oil and the stink of rusted hulks, he smelled an odor much more familiar to him…sulfur.

The place reeked of it, fouling the air as well as coloring the ground at his feet where the fine yellow powder spewed out in a large circular pattern. Dean saw the very deliberate outline of a circle scored into the earth as well as other geometrical symbols carved out around it while some others bisected it and suddenly some things became crystal clear to him. "Well, well Angelique," he said and squatted next to the circle to take a pinch of the sulfurous material.

Sniffing it he knew a demon, or worse, had recently been conjured up especially when he saw the impressions of a horse's hooves ground into the soil. Standing up he turned slowly back toward the house and was momentarily taken aback when Sabine stood barring his way.

"So this is how you roll, you hex spewing, maggot riddled, hose bag," he spat out and Sabine simply smiled.

Hers was a cold smile that started to leach away the very warmth of the day and she said to him, "Tell me how you really feel, Dean."

"I'll do more than that, bitch," he threatened and pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his jacket pocket. Never one to commit much of anything to memory he started to read aloud, "I conjure thee Harborim, in the names of the highest, Baell, Bileth and Beliall…"

Before he could finish the first line on his sheet Sabine interrupted him. "You're too late…and too much of a hack," she told him raising her arms to the sky, "I believe Bileth has other business to attend to."

Cursing her under his breath Dean opened his mouth to start again but her words drowned him out. "I call on you Bileth to appear!" she commanded and the wind rose up and the hulks of Detroit's finest started to slowly twist and sway.

The screech of metal on metal made Dean's skin crawl and his teeth ache and, figuring she meant business, he stepped directly into the protective circle thinking he was now safe. He taunted her smugly, "Bring it on, Witchipoo. You can't touch me in here."

"As I said before…a hack," she told him and the wind suddenly stilled.

The stench of sulfur grew exponentially and Dean immediately felt someone, or something, directly at his back. Without turning to see what stank to high heaven he headed toward Sabine but was stopped dead in his tracks at the very edge of the circle. A startled look replaced the smug one from just moments before.

Sabine pushed her wind whipped hair back from her face and laughed spitefully, "You might have been safe from Bileth…if you hadn't walked directly into the casting circle."

"I thought it was a protection circle," he admitted sheepishly showing his relative ignorance of the black arts. Suddenly Dean felt a pressure and looked down. A long fingered hand rested on his shoulder, the withered digits undulating like snakes, and he shivered involuntarily at the heat of the appendage and the power of its owner.

"Take him to the tree and hold him fast, highness," Sabine commanded and dropped a cloth bag at her feet with a thud.

"I sure hope that's the Burger King you're talking to," Dean said sardonically, his voice quavering slightly. Fearing he was close to passing out Dean tried to regulate his breathing as hunter and demon moved easily through the circle to one of the scorched trees that were slowly dying simply by their close proximity to Sabine's unholy ground.

"Hardly," she replied and reached into the bag. She pulled out a rope and tied him to the tree. She reached back into the bag and this time produced what looked to Dean to be some kind of Halloween prop/ medieval torture device.

"Every day's Halloween for you hags, huh?" he spat out lifting his chin at the device.

"You wish," Sabine told him and waved the four pronged leather belted device in front of his face, "I've worn these many times and I can tell you it's extremely painful…and then you die."

Dean stared at the ancient, hand forged, rusted metal object and asked, "What the hell is that gizmo?"

"A Heretic's Fork," she told him with another cold smile.

Bileth grabbed Dean's hair and yanked back painfully on his head stretching his neck taut while Sabine jammed two of the prongs into the flesh and bones of his sternum. As much as he wanted to he couldn't scream because Belith then held a hoary hand under his chin and the other prongs scraped the skin beneath it until they anchored firmly in the thin muscle under his tongue. Blood dripped from the wounds made by the tines as Belith's scabby fingers ran the leather strap into the buckle and pulled it tight enough to nearly strangle him.

The demon, having finished what he had been called upon to do, stepped back into the circle from which he'd appeared and looked at Sabine expectantly. After a tense moment she uttered the dismissal spell and she and Dean were suddenly alone in the darkening gloom.

Dean's neck, stretched to its limits, started to ache but he was helpless to relieve the pressure or call for help or to move at all for that matter and tears of pain and anger slipped from beneath his eyelids.

Sabine stood swaying back and forth, her arms wrapped around her, content to just watch him struggle because lowering his head would drive the forks further into him, perhaps through the chest wall and into his heart, and opening his mouth to speak or cry out would force the prongs through the floor of his mouth and up into his brain. "The only thing we're missing is a Spanish priest," she quipped and stepped closer to him to see his tears up close, "I wanted Bilith to kill you but you're protected… by your father."

Dean could only moan. His father's death was still a fresh, open wound in his heart and Sabine rejoiced as bright new tears appeared in his eyes. "I can't kill you either, more's the pity," she explained to him and leaned in to collect a tear which she then brought to her lips to taste, "It seems that only you or your brother can do the deed."

Night was falling but enough light remained for her to see his breath hitch as he swallowed and the forks bit in further. "And to save Sammy," she said drawing close to him, "I'm betting on you."


	18. Chapter 18

"You leave him alone, you bitch," Dean shouted in his mind but the effort of even thinking it caused his head to tremble slightly and the prongs worked ever so slightly deeper.

"What is it, Dean? You'll have to speak up," Sabine taunted him. "What's that? You're just going to let Sammy walk blindly into my trap, into my evil clutches? Not a word of warning for him?"

Dean groaned and more blood dripped down his chest as his anger and panic grew and caused his lungs to heave. Sabine knew it was just a mattering of time before Dean Winchester would no longer be a hindrance to her or a pain in her ass.

"But I thought you loved him, Sabine," Sabine spoke for him in a nasty voice then stepped back away from her prisoner and answered, "I did love him but it wasn't enough. It was never enough. Even with all my conjuring his heart never belonged to me…will never belong to me...until Harborim rips it from his chest and places it into my hands."

Dean's eyes opened wide and the witch laughed. The fork bit in even more and the pain was unbearable.

"I told you that you're protected and it's true...but your brother isn't. It seem that Daddy did have a favorite after all."

The physical pain, and now the emotional pain, was so bad that all Dean could do was cry and silently say his goodbyes.

"I tried to make Sam love me, bind him to me, first with spells and then through Bobby's illness. Even then through our shared grief it worked for a short time," she explained angrily to Dean, "but his love and his loyalty always came back to you." Sabine stopped and cocked her head and watched as Dean closed his eyes and moaned once more.

"You didn't even know it, did you?" she said rhetorically, "What a dumb bunny."

If he could have laughed Dean would have. What a dumb bunny indeed. What a dead bunny...or was it a dormouse?

"Your brother would go to the ends of the earth for you...with you...if only you'd swallowed your pride and asked him," she said and, smiling like a she wolf, Sabine cocked her head again this time to listen to the hurried footfalls heading their way.

"This must be Sammy now," she told Dean and started to chant, "I conjure thee Harborim, in the names of the highest, Baell, Bileth and Beliall, their power and retribution and to their virtues and powers I charge thee Harborim, that thou shalt not take leave from my sight, nor alter thy bodily image that thou hath been given the ableness to have appeared in, nor any power shalt thou have of our bodies or souls, earthly or ghostly, but to be obedient to me, and to the words of my conjuration. I conjure thee Harborim, by all thrones, dominations, principats, potestats and virtutes, and by their virtues and powers. I conjure and charge, bind and constrain thee Harborim, by the highest and their virtues, that thou be obedient unto me, and to come and appear visible unto me, and that in all days, hours, and minutes, wheresoever I be, being called by the virtue of the highest, thou shalt look ready to appear unto me, and to give me good counsel, to impart unto me the intelligent power that wrongs may be righted, foul deeds undone and a lasting better may be thereby made and in all other things my will to be quickly fulfilled: I charge thee upon pain of everlasting condemnation and torment, Fiat, fiat, fiat, Amen."

Harborim, a duke and commander of twenty-six hellish legions, appeared within the casting circle. His was a gaunt figure dressed in rich, fine robes but reeked of fire and brimstone. He turned to stare directly at Dean Winchester and the hunter wanted to scream when he looked deep into the specter's eyes. They burned with the very fires of hell.

"Sabine!" It was Sam's voice that made Harborim ask of Dean, "Do you recant?"

"Sammy, run!" It was Sam's voice that Dean heard just before he opened his mouth fully to cry out the warning, his muscles and tongue speared through by the tines of the fork. The pain was unimaginable and, when it became too much for him, he let his head fall forward.

Sam ran the rest of the way to the clearing and stopped short when confronted by Sabine.

"Harborim, I command thee to restrain him," she shouted to the apparition behind her and Sam unwittingly stepped into the casting circle while Harborim moved out to stand next to Dean.

Sam spotted his brother tied to a tree and cried out to him but he knew that his brother was gone, tortured to death by the witch and her familiar. He tried to go to him anyway but couldn't leave the confines of the circle Sabine had scribed in the earth. Giving up, tears rolled down his cheeks and he simply asked, "Why?"

Harborim answered him just as simply, "I was summoned to right a wrong."

"Yea and the wrong is that his heart was cold to me because of his love for this brother," Sabine smiled and pointed to Dean.

Sam started to struggle once more to free himself and she wondered if it was to come to her…go to Dean.

Harborim looked to Sam and watched as he struggle. The demon felt his pain, saw the agony on his face and turned his fire eyes to Sabine and asked, "What would you have of me…of him?"

"I would have his love, the love he wastes on the dead. I would have it all, not his mother, not his father nor his brother," Sabine said and pointed to the body that hung lifeless and still, tied to the tree, the Heritic's Fork planted deep in his chest and into his brain.

Harborim bid Sam Winchester stop pushing against the unseen forces that kept him prisoner within the circle and the hunter complied. Smiling at Sabine the demon duke lifted his hand and suddenly she stood alone in the circle.

Screeching, her hair flying wildly all around her, she clawed at the invisible walls that now held her prisoner and shouted, "What trickery is this?"

"No trickery, witch. You know as well as I that only the purest of heart and intent will find favor with me**."**

Both Sam and the demon watched as Sabine stopped her hysterics and her face drained of all color. "But you can not deny me. I summoned you."

"And I shall do as I'm bid, right that which is wrong," Harborim told her and turned his attention to the dead man tied to the tree.

"Leave him alone!" His brother had been through enough and Sam wouldn't let anyone, especially not devil's underling, harm him any more.

But Harborim simply lifted Dean's head to remove the torturous device and leaned in to place both hands on either side of his head and healed the horrendous wounds and breathed life back into the hunter's body.

Sam untied Dean and the two of them stood, shoulder-to-shoulder, and stared at Hell's minion as he turned his attention to Sabine.

"Witch, I have discharged my duty but before I go…I give thee greetings from the Lost Souls," he said to Sabine and she began to wail like a banshee.

Dean cleared his throat and managed a hoarse whisper, "What'll we do now, Sammy?"

Sam just shrugged his shoulders. He called to Sabine but she had collapsed to the ground in the knowledge that the Lost Souls had exacted their revenge and she continued to wail.

Turning back to the brothers Winchester, Harborim said, "I must be dismissed…but before I go, I should warn you," he stopped to point to Dean and said in a voice as cold as ice, "When next I see you, you will be in my dominion and no one will take pity on your soul."

Sam and Dean stood, each of them staring at the presence, wondering how to dismiss him and what his cryptic message to Dean could possibly mean when a woman's voice rang out forcefully.

"Go now, take thy leave spirit unto the place predestined and appointed for thee, where the eternal virtue of the highest hath appointed thee, until I shall call thee again. Be thou ready unto me and to my call, as often as I shall call thee, upon the promise and pain of everlasting damnation."


	19. Chapter 19

Beth held her breath until she was sure Harborim would not return again unless summoned, something she was loath to do even to right a wrong. Bobby Singer stood next to her just short of the clearing with his arm wrapped protectively around her shoulders. It had been years since she had uttered even one word of a spell and she had wondered if she still had the juice. But with Bobby's support, and a good deal of his scotch, she had found the strength to rush in where angels feared to tread.

Sabine stopped her wailing and pushed the hair out of her face. She rose up to her full height and smiled.

"She's no longer bound to the circle!" Beth shouted and both brothers moved in unison to cut off the witch's retreat.

Sabine had no intentions of running. She would simply kill them all then leave this backwater town. Stepping out of the casting circle she threw her head back and raised her arms to the sky.

"Do you have it, Sam?" Beth asked and Sam held up the brown paper bag he'd put under his jacket when he left her shop.

"Good, then I call upon Amaymon king of the east, Gorson king of the south, Zimimar king of the north, Goap king and prince of the west, that thee shall attend my words. A powerful witch is upon me and hath refused to take her proper leave," Beth chanted.

Sabine lowered her arms and started to laugh. "Take care, Wiccan, lest I leave you without a tongue with which to speak and eyes with which to see!" Sabine warned, eyes glaring at the interloper.

The witch then pointed a sharp finger at Beth and the woman's speech became slurred and her vision cloudy but still she summoned, "Go thee now Amaymon, Gorson, Zimmar and Goap unto Baell and plead my request that this sorceress be bound unto mine word and that no resting place may she take, not in the sun, the moon, the twelve signs, the clouds, the air, the sea, the man nor woman nor beast nor earth nor that from it. Let this witch be bound unto mine word that to ignore shall she suffer the punishment of pain and great suffering. I conjure and constrain the witch that now immediately thou be obedient unto me, at all times hereafter, and to those words of mine pronounced, according to thine oath and promise: else let the great curse of the great and eternal virtue of the highest, the anger of the great and eternal virtue of the highest, the shadow and darkness of everlasting condemnation be upon thee Sabine for ever and ever, and for thy great disobedience thou are worthy to be condemned."

As she spoke her voice returned to full strength and her eyes were sharp as a hawk's. Beth smiled at Sabine and said, "I'm a practitioner of the dark arts, you foolish hag, and I command thee return to thy foul casting circle."

Sabine simply laughed, a little more hysterically this time, and started toward Dean. Her hands were extended and her fingers were like claws intent on literally tearing him to pieces but Sam grabbed her, his arm around her neck, and flung her back into the circle where she was trapped once more. Taking a deep breath she turned mournful eyes toward Sam and felt his heart softening toward her despite what she had done to his brother and he took a step toward her.

"Sam," Beth called out softly and he stopped. Her voice alone offered him strength and protection from the witch's betrayal and the betrayal of his own heart.

Beth and Bobby had seen it all, the summoning of Harborim, the unconscionable pain and suffering and, finally, the death of Dean Winchester. Beth told Bobby to stay perfectly still and quiet throughout it all, which he did thanks to the fortifying whiskey she'd fed him and by the fact that she was pinching him unmercifully the whole time.

Familiar with Harborim and the overall duplicitous nature of demons Beth had trusted in the dark duke to indeed right that which was wrong and bring Dean Winchester back to life. But if her faith had been misplaced she had been prepared to do it herself and suffer the consequences of practicing Necromancy…"without a license" as Bobby liked to joke.

Turning to her Sam nodded solemnly, a sign that he was ready and fully prepared to do what needed to be done. Beth walked to Dean and put her hand on his arm and asked, "Hey handsome, how about sneaking off to Bobby's shop for a threesome?"

Dean's eyes widened precipitously and his mouth dropped open at the woman's suggestion. Sleeping with a hot cougar was pretty high up on his list of things to do…every chance he got…but having sex with Bobby Singer was never on nor would ever make any wish list he could ever deem to come up with…period.

Seeing his utter shock, Beth laughed and added, "You, me and a bottle of Johnnie Walker."

Dean relaxed and smiled. It was tempting but he needed to stay with his brother until the bitch was taken care of.

"Sam's safe," she assured him and looped her arm with his and pulled gently, "He needs to do this on his own."

Dean pulled back and looked at her skeptically but she insisted. It was going to be hard for the younger Winchester to renounce the witch and all his feelings for her. His love and affection for her had been as real as her feelings for him had been convoluted and tainted. Witch and hunter had been together for many months; she had borne him a child that they had named and buried together and Beth needed Dean to know that some secrets were better left kept. The fact that the love of Sam's life was a witch was more than enough for the younger Winchester to accept without piling on any more pain.

Beth also needed to know just how much Dean remembered of Harborim and of his own death not fifteen minutes before. Souls were fragile and fleeting and sometimes reapers were overzealous and careless leaving Necromancers to pick up the pieces and, if at all possible, to set things to right.

Bobby watched Beth as she tried to persuade Dean to come with her and said gruffly, "Did she tell ya it's a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue?"

That, and the woman's assurance that Sam would be okay, did the trick and the three of them headed back down the path toward Bobby's shop while Sam reached into the paper bag.

The glass ball was red and glowed and twinkled magnificently in the light of the setting sun. Sabine had never seen anything more beautiful…except for her darling Sammy, who let the ball dangle from a filament to sway back and forth, the red and golden lights reflecting into her face. It was mesmerizing and thrilling and Sabine couldn't resist a peek inside.

Grasping it in his hand Sam felt a burning heat inside of the orb and looked at the now empty casting circle longingly before heading to Bobby's machine shop where Dean greeted him at the door with a glass of whiskey in his hand which the younger Winchester gladly accepted. What he had done and what still had to be done, even though absolutely necessary for his and Dean's survival, was painful nonetheless and, taking a page from Dean's book on coping with the pain of loss, he downed all of the smooth amber liquid in one gulp.

Sam spotted Beth who stared at him with a look of trepidation on her face and he fished the red glass ball out of his jacket pocket and held it out, securely nestled in his hand, to put her mind at ease. She smiled sadly at him.

Bobby waited for him at his workbench, oxyacetylene torch in hand and Sam gently placed the glass ball into the crucible. Bobby fired up the welding torch and held it out to him. Sam refused the offer and the younger Winchester joined his brother and Beth around the makeshift bar set up on the workbench.

Sam watched briefly as Bobby flipped down his welding helmet and brought flame to glass and the witch's ball and the witch encased therein were destroyed.

Bobby joined them and leaned over his empty glass in hand. Beth poured him a generous amount of the liquid and topped off the other glasses and they sat and stood in companionable silence for a long while.

Dean, lost in thought, thought of Jewels Downey and smiled fondly. Thinking of her, too, a frown creased Sam's forehead and, taking a sip of his refilled glass, he began to wonder, "Do you think Jewels…" but Dean cut him off.

"No, no way Sammy. She loved you," Dean insisted and took another swallow of his Jack, "Besides the only reason she gave you that damned ball was because she knew you were gay."

Bobby guffawed loudly while Beth very nearly choked on a mouthful of whiskey and Sam just shook his head and chuckle resignedly and thought that, in his life, witches would come and go…but he only had one brother.

FIN

Again, my thanks you to all who read and to all who take the time to review.


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